University of Virginia Library

Printing Charges: Inference and Evidence
by
Keith I. D. Maslen

The facts of book production seldom turn out to be as simple as we suppose. We have recently been warned for instance not to infer a 'strict relationship between a particular compositor and a particular press-crew' in respect of a given work, since the practice of printing a number of works at the same time results in unpredictable complexities of work-flow.[1] The lesson drawn by Dr. D. F. McKenzie for the Cambridge University Press in the early eighteenth century holds equally for the Bowyer Press in the 1730's, as the Bowyer ledgers reveal.[2] The danger of supposing 'the existence of more order and regularity' in the printing process than really existed, to adapt Bacon's phrase, is compounded by our habit of going on to make particular deductions from sweeping assumptions. Dr. McKenzie has reminded us of this doubtful logic in a recent searching discussion of bibliographical argument.[3]

A further example of the complexity of trade practice in eighteenth-century London printing may be seen in the Bowyers' methods of determining their charge to the customer. This should serve as a warning against recent tendencies to presuppose uniformity of trade practice in this field as well. In a study of William Strahan's printing charges, for instance, Miss Hernlund doubtfully supposes that Strahan had a fixed scale of prices 'available for daily use in written or printed form', which set out the prices per sheet to customers for works in the several formats, sizes of type, and edition quantities.[4] This scale is inferred from ledger entries which in Strahan's early years usually

note type size, format, and number printed, but later only the number printed and the price per sheet. Gaps and anomalies in the reconstructed scale are put down to lack of the right kind of evidence.

Miss Hernlund does indeed present a range, if not a scale, of prices for different classes of book-work that offers a basis for comparison with charges by other printers, but her attempt to infer an actual scale used by Strahan is of doubtful validity, for several reasons. The first is given by T. C. Hansard who stresses the need to calculate afresh the charge for each work, not 'two works in fifty . . . [being] exactly fellows' (Typographia, 1825, pp. 791-2). A cut-and-dried scale of charges for book-work to customers would have been little use to Strahan. What Strahan no doubt did have was a scale or range of piece-rates for composition and press-work which he used to determine his final charge per sheet. Certainly for both Samuel Richardson and the Bowyers charges to customers were largely a function of productive wages. The point is made by the younger Bowyer in a letter to Jonathan Toup probably written in 1760: 'I have almost composed a Sheet . . . I cannot fix the Price, till I have seen the Sheet in Print, & agreed with the Workmen'.[5] Richardson has explained his own practice, chiefly in the well-known letter to William Blackstone of 10 February 1756.[6] The basic importance in the printing-trade of piecerate scales for composition and press-work is well recognized, even though it is not clear how far back in time they go. In 1749, long before the first London scale of prices for composition of 1785, Richardson had particularised the customary rates (Philip, pp. 1246). It was these if anything that the master had to keep by him. Once piece-rates for a particular job were decided, the price per sheet to the customers could be found by applying what Richardson calls the 'common 3ds which a Printer reckons on his Charges', i.e. by adding half as much again to the sum of productive wages, reckoning correction or reading as one sixth of composition, so that the master received for himself one-third of the total bill.[7]

Unfortunately, the Strahan ledgers reveal neither the rates for piece-work, nor how Strahan used these to arrive at his charge per sheet. We might of course assume that Strahan, like Richardson and the Bowyers, used the 'rule of thirds', so that it should be possible to infer the prices paid for composition and press-work from the final

charge per sheet. Some support for the results would come from prices current at the Cambridge University Press early in the century, or at the Bowyer Press during the 1730s, as shown by Dr. McKenzie in his study of the Cambridge University Press (1966) and his 'Printers of the mind' (1969), Appendix II.

Evidence that Bowyer commonly followed the rule of thirds to make up his price per sheet in book-work comes from his dispute with his partner James Emonson in 1757.[8] Once this is known it is often possible to infer acceptable rates for composition and press-work in examples where only the charge per sheet or even just the total cost of printing is known. For instance, the total cost of printing 1000 copies of Voltaire's History of Charles XII, 1755, in 12°, is noted at £21.0.0d for 15 sheets, which works out at £1.8s.od a sheet. Supposing presswork to have cost 1s.2d a token (of 250 perfected sheets), the most common rate quoted by various authorities, then the total per sheet for the 1000 copies works out exactly at 12s. for composing, 2s. for reading, 4 x 1s.2d for press-work, and 9s.4d for Bowyer's share. Confirmation of this guess-work is provided by a manuscript note that composition was in fact 12s.

However, these little calculations do not always work out neatly, and then one suspects that other hidden factors have influenced the result, such as say the need to quote a more than usually competitive price to the customer. Not once does the charge per sheet quoted by Dr. McKenzie for ten works in Appendix II (g) of 'Printers of the mind' break down theoretically according to the rule of thirds, although these are all cases where the cost of composition and press-work is known. When for item 1 a theoretical 23s. 7½d by the rule of thirds is found charged at 24s., then apparently Bowyer has merely rounded off this calculation to the nearest shilling; but in items 2 and 7 the charge of 18s. ought by the rule of thirds to have been 16s.6d and 19s. 3d respectively.

Elsewhere Dr. McKenzie has called it 'a simple matter' by applying the rule of thirds to calculate rates for composition and press-work for the London Magazine.[9] Noting that the price per sheet increases 6s. per 500 copies from 1500 to 8000, and allowing 2s. of this for the master's third, Dr. McKenzie manages to split up the price per sheet for 4000 copies as follows: composition per sheet 16s., correction at one-sixth 2s.8d, press-work at 8s. per 1000 £1.12.0d, plus the master's

third £1.5.4d, totalling £3.16.0d. The computation works out very neatly, but both composition and press-work are suspiciously high. For press-work something less than 4s.8d for long runs is suggested by Richardson writing in 1756, and this is the maximum at the Bowyer Press for book-work (Philip, p. 42). I think it more likely that Ackers took a fatter share than the rule of thirds would allow for printing the London Magazine, in which he was a proprietor, something closer to the one hundred per cent on productive wages charged by Bowyer for printing the Votes of the House of Commons.[10]

To do this Ackers may have used a different method of computing the price per sheet. This is a method occasionally noted in the Bowyer ledgers for runs of 1500 or more, according to which Ackers could have taken 40s. per sheet as his basic price for 1000 copies and thereafter charged 6s. a ream for press-work, at more than double the wages paid out to the press-men. The result may be the same, but the method of attaining it quite different, an alternative method to the rule of thirds.

An example of a calculation by this method was found 'confusing' by J. D. Fleeman when announcing the discovery of a set of Bowyer ledgers in the library of the Grolier Club, New York.[11] The item relates to Richardson's Pamela in small pica 12° entered 2 March (?) 1741: '2 Sh. No. 3000, at 26s & 5s Per R 46s'. This should be read as 26s. a sheet for the first 1000 copies and 5s. per ream thereafter, amounting to 46s. a sheet. Another example is printed without comment as item 8 in Appendix II (g) of Dr. McKenzie's 'Printers of the mind'.

In the Bowyer ledgers Grolier Club 19471 and 19474, which are consecutive customer account books covering some sixty years, I have found fifteen or so references to this method from 1717 to 1746. The only obvious common factor to the works involved is an edition quantity of 1500 or more, the great majority of works printed by the Bowyers being of 1000 copies or under. Otherwise the works are mostly in 8° and 12°, varying in length, though more often very short, printed for a variety of publishers, and only four times shared with other printers.

There is reason to suspect the use of this formula on other occasions when only the price per sheet is given. For instance, of a set of seven duodecimo plays mostly by Nathaniel Lee, entered for W.

Feales and Partners on 11 February 1734, the first separately printed play Sophonisba is noted at '30s per Sht for ye first Thousd & 5s per R for ye rest, viz. 47s: per Sheet' (Grolier 19471, fo. 115v). For the subsequent plays in quantities ranging from 2000-3000 only the total price per sheet is given. The same practice is found for a group of ten plays for Jacob Tonson entered during 1734-5: 10,000 copies of the first play in the series, the London Prodigal in long primer 12°, are charged at '30s for ye 1000 & 5s per R', but for the remaining plays only the total amount of the bill is noted, sometimes with the price per sheet. For instance, 10,000 of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra are charged at £6.0.0d (Grolier 19471, fo. 89v).

How often was charge by the ream over 1000 copies reckoned in the very many instances where only the price per sheet or total bill is noted, as in Strahan's ledgers? No definite answer can be given, but the use of this formula for some thirty years indicates that it was no idiosyncratic experiment. The bibliographer must in future test for multiple hypotheses.

Few entries relate to the period after the death of the elder Bowyer in 1737, but this may mean no more than that the son, for all his college education, was a very much less careful bookkeeper than his father. The practice of charging by the ream over 1000 copies is closer to nineteenth century practice as described by T. C. Hansard in Typographia (1825), p. 793. Hansard explains that after about 1810 it became the practice to charge the whole impression by ream work, a 'greater proportion' being laid upon the sum paid to the workmen for expenses and profit, whereas formerly the exact sum paid for working the first 1000 had been lumped with the cost of composition and correction and thirds added on the whole — unfortunately Hansard does not make it clear what happened above 1000. The increased charge for press-work amounting to more than double the cost of wages is justified by Hansard on account of the higher cost of type and the modern objection to worn type. The similar charge by Bowyer of 5s. per ream, also more than double the payment to the press, could also be justified on the grounds that as the size of the run grew, so did overheads for ink, wear and tear on type and presses and the costs of warehousing.

The charge by the ream after the first 1000 copies gave a higher return to the printer than the rule of thirds because of the greater margin taken on press-work. This may be why the prices per sheet of items 4 and 8 listed by Dr. McKenzie in Appendix II (g), previously mentioned, do not yield to analysis by the rule of thirds. Yet the

two methods are related, both depending on the same elements of productive wages. This relationship can be seen from the entry for the tragedy Philotas by Philip Frowde (Grolier 19471, fo. 72v):          

1730[/1]	Mr. Millar Dr
Feb. 18	For printing Philotas in 2 Sh. & ½ No. 2500 & 6 fine Pica 8vo at 20s per Sht for ye first Thousand &5s per R for ye Remainder	4	7	6
	Corrections in ye Two first half Sheets	0	5	0
		----	----	----
		4	12	6

From Grolier 19472 under 20 February 1730/1 it appears that composition of four half-sheets cost 8s. a sheet, and 2500 copies at press cost 5s. a forme, i.e. 10s. a sheet. By the rule of thirds 1000 copies would cost 8s. for composition, 1s.4d for correction, 4s. at press, and 65.8d for Bowyer, making £1.0.0d per sheet, the very price quoted by Bowyer. In this instance at least the price for the first 1000 copies was evidently made up in the familiar way by the rule of thirds, and one suspects that this was the usual practice. The charge per ream above 1000 copies at 5s. is 2½ times the cost of press-work. Since this figure is all but constant for the whole period in question, whereas presswork tends to vary slightly from one work to another, the rate for ream work should be recognized as a customary charge. It was no doubt originally reached by doubling the cost of press-work, commonly no higher than 1s.2d a token for the first 500 copies, i.e. 2s.4d a ream, and then by rounding this off to the nearest shilling.

Other examples work out rather less neatly. For instance, A defence of the measures of the present administration, for J. Peele, 1731, in 8°, listed by Dr McKenzie in the aforementioned Appendix II (g), is charged at 16s. for the first 1000 and 5s. per ream, composition is 5s.6d a sheet, and press-work for 1000 copies averaged 4s.4d. By the rule of thirds the price for 1000 copies should have been 16s.1½d, not 16s. Bowyer has apparently abated his price per sheet, just as sometimes he knocks a few shillings off the final account once payment is virtually complete.

A charge per ream is commonly found in Bowyer's jobbing work, applying especially to his regular printing of the duodecimo Sternhold and Hopkins Psalms, and various almanacs, for the Company of Stationers, and to such short pieces as Edward Synge's Answer to all the excuses and pretences which men ordinarily make for their not coming to the Holy Communion, of which the Bowyers printed a dozen or so

editions from 1717 to 1764. The distinct difference is that in jobbing work the charge per ream applies from the first. Again a common rate per ream is 5s, as for single sheets of the almanacs Culpepper and Rose, but sheet B of the Lady's Almanac with its geometrical cuts is 6s., and the title sheet of Poor Robin in red and black 9s. per ream, taking into account the double working. Synge's Answer to all the excuses is charged on 28 June 1712 at 5s. per ream, but later editions at 6s. Volume III of the Iliad translated by Pope, 2500 copies in 12° for Bernard Lintot, entered 1 September 1719, is quoted at '48s. per Sh.viz. 30s the first Thousand, & 6s. per R the rest', volume I being entered six weeks later simply at 48s. a sheet. Strahan followed a very similar method for large runs of jobbing work, if I interpret Miss Hernlund correctly (p. 95).

As I have explained elsewhere, Bowyer uses a variety of the charge per ream for the Votes of the House of Commons, this time to allow himself a margin of about one hundred per cent on productive wages, in accordance with the custom that Parliamentary work should be charged double on account of the night work and the need to keep hands in readiness.

This investigation has revealed an alternative method of charging to the rule of thirds, which has been too easily accepted as the all-sufficient principle of charging for eighteenth-century book-work. It has been shown that some charges do not work out exactly by either method, perhaps because on occasions the master suited his regular charges to particular needs, as all businessmen do. Sometimes a price was evidently agreed upon in advance. Bowyer printed 3500 copies for Richard Sare of part of Abel Boyer's Compleat French Master, 1714, at 25s. per sheet 'per agreemt' (Grolier 19471, fo. 82). For many years thereafter, although the same price structure is kept, no agreement is mentioned, nor was there need for a fresh one. Agreements are noted for a wide variety of works, some calling for large edition quantities, shared printing, or difficult setting — it is not easy to see exactly why.[12]

The last word is best left to Richardson, who told Blackstone in 1756, referring evidently to the whole subject of prices, that he generally fixed his prices by 'Practice, by Example, by Custom, and by Inspection' (Philip, p. 41). Richardson is drawing attention to the various ways of determining prices: by following an established system, by following a particular precedent, by following traditional

trade practice, and by appraisement of the work in question. No doubt he would have allowed a further consideration: by agreement or consultation, with the workmen in the case of piece-rates for composition and press-work, and with the customer for rates per sheet.

Notes