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We know very little about the making and use of paper in England in the eighteenth century. Even though more information is becoming available in published documents and commentary, we do not know enough to make generalizations about paper which would apply to the entire century or to large sections of England. Until we have more specific details, we must proceed with the kind of caution described by Donald F. McKenzie in his recent and valuable study The Cambridge University Press 1696-1712 (1966). Speaking of the difference between production cost and wholesale and retail costs of books, McKenzie warns
Even the few generalizations and facts we do have will bear reexamination. For example, it is widely accepted as true that the customer, particularly if he were a bookseller, provided the paper for a printing contract. Frequently the proof for this theory is a reference to the "fact" that the customer provided the paper at William Strahan's large and prosperous printing company in London — a "fact" for which there is no evidence at all. Even so careful a scholar as McKenzie refers to Strahan's ledgers to substantiate, in part, his contention that book-sellers
J. A. Cochrane makes a slightly different claim in his recent biography Dr. Johnson's Printer: The Life of William Strahan (1964). Cochrane devotes p. 16 to describing the use of paper at Strahan's company. He begins by saying that "paper was usually supplied to the printer by the bookseller (or publisher), but the printer would have to buy it for jobbing work." Cochrane's supporting evidence is not a discussion of Strahan's ledgers but a description of Richardson's practices as presented by William M. Sale, Jr., in Samuel Richardson: Master Printer (1950), pp. 24-25, which is followed by the explanation that "all paper was of course hand made in sheets measuring about 15 inches by 20 — the standard crown size — or 12 inches by 16." Cochrane concludes p. 16 by implying that Stephen Theodore Janssen was Strahan's sole supplier of "small amounts [of paper] used for jobbing work and such bookwork as was not worth the bookseller's while supplying paper for." None of Cochrane's statements is totally wrong but none of them explains any more accurately than Austen-Leigh's sentence what actually happened at Strahan's shop.
Strahan's ledgers do contain valuable information about practices followed in using and charging for paper stock. We must remember, however, that the information is fragmentary rather than complete because Strahan's warehouse books for major paper transactions have not been found.[1]
I have gathered 631 entries mentioning paper, a representative majority of such entries in Ledgers A, B, D and F, from 1738 to the year of Strahan's death, 1785. For the sake of clarity, I shall mention these 631 entries throughout as though they were exactly half of the entries for paper rather than a majority. This decision allows me to compute approximate percentages so that the reader will have a clear
| 631 x 2 | = 1,262 | approximate total entries mentioning paper | = 7% |
| Ledgers A, B, D and F | =16,867 | approximate total entries note mentioning paper | = 93% |
| ------ | ------ | ||
| 18,129[2] | 100% |
The standard debit entry in Strahan's ledgers represented a contract between Strahan and the customer, the proprietor of the copyright. It is significant that Strahan did not mention paper stock in 16,867 entries, for it means the customer was not billed for this costly necessity. If he was not being billed, then (a) the customer was providing the paper, or (b) Strahan was including paper in the cost per sheet of the contract. At first glance, it seems logical to say that the customer was providing the paper, and this hypothesis is confirmed by examination of the entries in which paper is mentioned.
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