University of Virginia Library

A catalogue of the books issued by John Trundle in the first decades of the seventeenth century would not have impressed the serious-minded reader of his own, or later, time. Here are no translations of the classics, no weighty folios of history or legend, not even any collections of sermons. Instead there are reports of sensational news, accounts of monsters and miracles, advice on "how to live," and sketches of rogues and murderers, together with ballads on similar subjects. There is a scattering of play titles, including the first, "bad" quarto of Hamlet, Middleton and Rowley's A Faire Quarrell and Dekker's The Whore of Babylon. There are as well some topical works by Dekker, and, later on, a few titles by John Taylor, the "water-poet." But the catalogue shows that Trundle devoted most of his twenty-three years in the trade to the publication of pamphlet literature meant to catch the eye of the lower-class reading public.

Trundle missed few opportunities to exploit the public's taste for news of the current sensation. His rogues gallery exhibits several notable malefactors, including the famous highwayman Gamaliel Ratsey, and James Franklin and Anne Turner, agents in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. One of his "monsters," the famous serpent or dragon of Sussex, was still being referred to years after its original appearance in print. And one of his last publications recounts the adventures of Richard Peeke, later celebrated as "Dick of Devonshire." When the present scene failed him, he republished old stories with dates expunged or fresh dates inserted, or he offered translations of astonishing news from foreign lands. Of course, other publishers of this time brought out such titles and engaged in similar practices, but none of them seems to have cultivated this area as assiduously as did Trundle, and few of them gained Trundle's reputation for the publication of such items.

Trundle's notoriety may be judged from the number of references to him in the contemporary literature. Ben Jonson, for example, in introducing topical references into the revision of Every Man in His Humour, has Edward

Knowell refer to a letter sent to his father: "Well, if he read this with patience, Ile be gelt, and troll ballads for Mr. IOHN TRVNDLE, yonder, the rest of my mortalitie" (1.3.62-4, Herford and Simpson ed.). Like that of Nathaniel Butter, Trundle's name made a pun irresistible. Thus the anonymous author of Lachrymae Londinenses, 1626 (STC 16573), cautions the reader against the many "Spuriall Pamphlets, which the Presse hath of late already spewed out, (Broods of Barbican, Smithfield, and the Bridge, and Trundled, trolled and marshalled vp and downe along the Streets . . .)" (B2-2v, quoted by Wilson, Plague Pamphlets, pp. 245-246). And John Taylor, in Taylors Motto, 1621 (STC 23800), refers to the "monstrous newes [that] came Trundling in my way . . ." (E2v). That Trundle was not averse to such publicity is suggested by the fact that the latter title is one of his own publications (with Henry Gosson). So pervasive was Trundle's reputation that it outlived him for a number of years. Alexander Gill, in his satirical verses on Jonson's Magnetic Lady, advises that "As for the Press, yf thy Playe must Come toote; Let Thomas Purffoot or Iohn Trundell doo'te . . ." (Quoted in Herford and Simpson, 11:346-8). Gill was writing later than 1632, at least six years after Trundle's death.[1]

Though Trundle cannot be seen as an important publisher, if that is measured by the number of significant intellectual or literary titles, his career is nonetheless of interest to a student of the book-trade. An analysis of his methods in the pursuit of manuscripts and his practices in bringing the editions to the public throws light upon the commercial negotiations involved in the transmission of texts. This area of the trade has received scant attention, at least during Trundle's time. As John Feather has remarked: "bibliographers

have to study the book trade as a trade, and to try to recover some of the understanding of its commercial arrangements which were common knowledge among its members. To ignore this, is to ignore a factor which has always been central to the production of books: the factor of profit" (p. 8). Trundle published the majority of his books in collaboration with other stationers, though he also functioned independently in a few instances where books were concerned and usually in the production of ballads and broadsides. A study of his connections with his associates helps to define the areas of specialization that were appearing in the trade at this time.

The following article on Trundle's career is divided into three parts. The first is biographical; the second examines his relationships with other stationers; and the third investigates his tactics in the pursuit of copy and comments on the publication history of some of his more interesting titles.