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`Poor Fielding! I could not help telling his sister, that I was equally surprised at and concerned for his continued lowness. Had your brother, said I, been born in a stable, or been a runner at a sponging-house, we should have thought him a genius'. Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh, 23 Feb. 1752, in John Carroll, ed., Selected letters of Samuel Richardson (1964), p. 198.
See for instance Keith Maslen, `A Supplement to The Bowyer ornament stock', An early London printing house at work: studies in the Bowyer ledgers (1993), pp. 235- 243.
For a discussion of this practice see Maslen, `Shared printing and the bibliographer: new evidence from the Bowyer press', An early London printing house at work, pp. 153-164.
William C. Slattery, ed., The Richardson-Stinstra correspondence and Stinstra's Prefaces to Clarissa (1969), p. 99.
For printing done by the Bowyers see The Bowyer ledgers, ed. Keith Maslen and John Lancaster (1991).
J. Paul de Castro and A. W. Pollard eventually agreed that the `Francis' edition was first printed, though second published. See de Castro, `Henry Fielding's last voyage', Library, 3rd ser., 8 (1917), 145-159 (with a reply by Pollard on pp. 160-162), and `The printing of Fielding's works', Library, 4th ser., 1 (1920-21), 257-270. In his second article de Castro printed the relevant entries from Strahan's ledger A, but without analysis. William B. Todd, in `Observations on the incidence and interpretation of press figures', Studies in Bibliography, 3 (1950), 171-205, in particular pp. 196-198, used press figures and watermark evidence to determine the method of imposition. For the best account of the textual problems of this work, see Hugh Amory, `The authority of the two versions of Fielding's Journal of a voyage to Lisbon', The culture of the book (Melbourne, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 1999), pp. 182-200. In an appendix Amory summarised facts and problems to do with printing and publication. I am much obliged to him for encouraging me to grapple with the problems and for his help in my attempts at a solution.
Octavo account book in which Strahan periodically calculated his net worth, 1755-61 (American Philosophical Society: call no. B St 83, no. 4). I am grateful to Dr Hugh Amory for supplying the reference, and to the American Philosophical Society for permission to print the substance of the entry.
Copies seen at the Houghton Library, Harvard (*EC7.F460.755jba), and the University of Otago (Eb1755F).
Amory suggests that the existing [A]4, containing the Dedication, is a cancel and postulates an original A6, later cancelled, to make up exactly 12 sheets (`The authority of the two versions', p. 197). For Todd's argument see note 10 above.
See for instance `Samuel Richardson as printer: expanding the canon', Order and connexion: studies in bibliography and book history; selected papers from the Munby Seminar, Cambridge, July 1994, ed. R. C. Alston (1997), pp. 1-16.
Richard Goulden, in The ornament stock of Henry Woodfall 1719-1747, Bibliographical Society Occasional Papers 3 (1988), p. vii, notes in particular Henry Woodfall junior's borrowings from his father's stock.
`An editorial impasse; the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols printer's notebook', An early London printing house at work (1993), pp. 213-222 (p. 218).
Ledger B, ff. 16v and 21r (BL Add. MSS 48803A). I am grateful to Dr Hugh Amory and Professor O M Brack for supplying photocopies of openings in this ledger. In these same two accounts Strahan also charged Richardson in March 1752 for printing a `Case relating to the Santa Catharina', 3 sheets pica, no. 250 and 60, and a `Road Act', 4 sheets, 8vo, no. 300, and 60; and in February 1754 for a `Road Bill for Leicester to Northampton', 6 sheets, no. 15, 25 and 150. My impression is that from the early 1750s Strahan was printing more and more private bills, a class of work then much expanding, and which Richardson deemed very much his speciality, given that he had been engaged in it from his earliest years.
Joseph Moxon prefers the usage `Work off', with past participle `wrought off', as in `he Works off the Reteration' (Mechanick exercises on the whole art of printing, ed. H. Davis and H. Carter [1958], pp. 296-297). William Savage, in A dictionary of the art of printing (1841), uses `worked, or worked-off' to refer to the process whereby a `job, or the sheet of a work is printed' at press. In contrast the term `printing' is used to cover the range of processes that occur at the printing house.
See item 2610 (9 Oct. 1738) in The Bowyer ledgers. For printing charges and methods of arriving at them see Maslen, `Printing charges: inference and evidence', An early London printing house at work, pp. 91-96.
Had Bowyer adopted the more common method of charging used for shorter works he would have added one-sixth of the cost of composition for correction, and fifty per cent of the three costs of composition, correction and presswork as his master's share, thus reaching a total of 36s. 9d.
The Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols notebook, British Library of Political and Economic Science, MS. Collection G 1521, rear paste-down: `Del[ivere]d Mr. Richard Janeway Jan 19, 1704 at ye li. Small pica Black 4 Cases and Letter 135, More Letter 126, More of the same 039, Quadrats 023 [totalling] 323 [pounds, at 6 pence a pound]'. The notebook is described in Maslen, `An editorial impasse: the Dawks-Bowyer-Nichols printer's notebook'.
In 1732 Bowyer sold Faulkner large quantities of pica and long primer, and from this date eight `Bowyer' ornaments begin to be used by the Dublin printer—see `George Faulkner and William Bowyer: the London connection', An early London printing house at work, pp. 223-233 (p. 230).
It is well known that over many years Strahan himself sent printing materials, including type as well as books to his protégé David Hall in Philadelphia. Confer Strahan to Hall, 9 March 1745: `I have sent the Fount of English by this Ship... ', American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia, quoted in J. A. Cochrane, Dr. Johnson's printer: the life of William Strahan (1964), pp. 64-65. In this instance Strahan was apparently acting as a printer's broker, by placing an order of type on Hall's behalf. See also The colonial book in the Atlantic world, (Vol. 1 of A history of the book in America), ed. Hugh Amory and David D. Hall (2000), p. 188.
Sale (p. 197), quoting Forster MSS, XI, f. 96, notes that volume 5 of this work was printed by Strahan. Sale also notes that this volume has no Richardson ornaments—see Appendix 2.
Forster MSS, XIII, I, f. 117; Sale, pp. 84-85, and Eaves and Kimpel, pp. 503-504. In a subsequent letter of 30 August 1758 Richardson apologised to Mrs Chapone for his intemperate language of two months before: `When I said that the ingrateful Man I hinted at, went about propagating his Calumnies upon me, in the Word Calumnies I wrote too strongly perhaps—He avows his Business, and boldly pleads, tho' a prosper'd Man, Self-Interest for it' (Forster MSS, XIII, I, ff. 125-126).
For Richardson's printing of private bills see Maslen, `Samuel Richardson's private Acts', Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, 19 (1995), pp. 3-13; see also Order and connexion, pp. 1-16.
Sale, Samuel Richardson: a bibliographical record of his literary career with historical notes (1936), p. 38, reports a copy of this edition of the Letters in private hands said to lack a title leaf, and misdates it 1755 on the strength of an advertisement of 1 July 1755 in the Public Advertiser. However, a copy complete with title leaf at Smith College, Massachusetts, kindly reported by Martin Antonetti, Curator of Rare Books in the Neilson Library, bears the title-page date of 1754.
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