Publications of B. H.

Note: The following printer, bookseller, or publisher lists are works in progress. They are generated from title page imprints and may reproduce false and misleading attributions or contain errors.

What does "printed by" mean? How to read the roles ascribed to people in the imprints.

In terms of the book trades, the lists below are sorted into up to four groups where: the person is designated in the imprint as having a single role:

  1. "printed by x"; or
  2. "sold by x"; or
  3. "printed for x" or "published by x";

or as having multiple roles in combination (which suggests a likelihood that the person is a trade publisher):

  1. "printed and sold by x"; "printed for and sold by x"; or "printed by and for x" and so on.

Printers (owners of the type and printing presses, and possibly owners of the copyright) may be identified by the words printed by, but printed by does not universally designate a person who is a printer by trade. Booksellers may be identified by the words sold by, but sold by encompasses a number of roles. Booksellers or individuals who owned the copyright are generally identified by the words printed for, but nothing should be concluded in this regard without further evidence, especially since "printed for" could signify that the named person was a distributor rather than a copyright holder. Trade publishers, who distributed books and pamphlets but did not own the copyright or employ a printer—and were not printers themselves—might be identified by the words printed and sold by. Furthermore, works from this period often display false imprints, whether to evade copyright restrictions, to conceal the name of the copyright holders, or to dupe unwitting customers. Ultimately, one must proceed with caution in using the following lists: designations in the imprints may not reliably reflect the actual trades or roles of the people named, and the formulas used in imprints do not consistently mean the same thing.

David Foxon discussed the "meaning of the imprint" in his Lyell Lecture delivered at Oxford in March 1976, with particular attention to "publishers" in the eighteenth-century context:

The fullest form of an imprint is one which names three people, or groups of people:
     London: printed by X (the printer), for Y (the bookseller who owned the copyright), and sold by Z.
In the eighteenth century the printer's name is rarely given, at least in works printed in London, and the form is more commonly:
     London: printed for Y, and sold by Z.
Very often in this period, and particularly for pamphlets, it is further abbreviated to:
     London: printed and sold by Z.
It is this last form which is my present concern. Z is usually what the eighteenth century called 'a publisher', or one who distributes books and pamphlets without having any other responsibility—he does not own the copyright or employ a printer, or even know the author.

D. F. McKenzie coined the term "trade publisher" for these publishers in his Sandars Lectures, also in 1976, on the grounds that their principal role was to publish on behalf of other members of the book trade (Treadwell 100).

Michael Treadwell cautions that "In this period the imprint 'London: Printed and sold by A.B.' normally means 'Printed at London, and sold by A.B.' and must not be taken to mean that A.B. is a printer in the absence of other evidence." Further, "The imprint 'published by' occurs only rarely in Wing and is almost always associated with the name of a trade publisher" (104). While there are exceptions to the rule, it is "certain," he explains, "that anyone who made a speciality of distributing works for others will show a far higher proportion than normal of imprints in one of the 'sold by' forms" (116), which appear in the imprint as "sold by," "printed and sold by," or "published by" (104). Treadwell gives Walter Kettilby as an example of "a fairly typical copyright-owning bookseller" (106)—his role is almost always designated by the phrase "printed for" on imprints.

A final caution: publisher is a word that should be used with some deliberation. Samuel Johnson defines it simply as "One who puts out a book into the world," but "published by" rarely appears on the imprint until later in the eighteenth century, and then primarily associated with newspapers and pamphlets. Treadwell observes that John Dunton names only five publishers among the 200 binders and booksellers in his autobiographical Life and Errors (1705) wherein he undertakes "to draw the Character of the most Eminent [Stationers] in the Three Kingdoms" (100). Treadwell also remarks, however, that "in law, anyone who offered a work for sale 'published' it. In this sense every work had one or more 'publishers', and every bookseller, mercury, and hawker was a 'publisher'" (114).

See:

  • Terry Belanger, "From Bookseller to Publisher: Changes in the London Book Trade, 1750–1850," in Book Selling and Book Buying. Aspects of the Nineteenth-Century British and North American Book Trade, ed. Richard G. Landon (Chicago: American Library Association, 1978).
  • Bricker, Andrew Benjamin. "Who was 'A. Moore'? The Attribution of Eighteenth-Century Publications with False and Misleading Imprints," in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 110.2 (2016).
  • John Dunton, The Life and Errors of John Dunton (London: Printed for S. Malthus, 1705).
  • John Feather, "The Commerce of Letters: The Study of the Eighteenth-Century Book Trade," Eighteenth-Century Studies 17 (1984).
  • David Foxon, Pope and the Early Eighteenth-Century Book Trade, ed. James McLaverty (Oxford University Press, 1991).
  • Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language, (printed for J. and P. Knapton; T. and T. Longman; C. Hitch and L. Hawes; A. Millar; and R. and J. Dodsley, 1755).
  • D.F. McKenzie, The London Book Trade in the Later Seventeenth Century (Sandars lectures in bibliography, 1977).
  • Michael Treadwell, "London Trade Publishers 1675–1750," The Library sixth series, vol. 4, no. 2 (1982).

Printed by B. H.

  • Aristotle's master-piece compleated, in two parts. The first containing the secrets of generation, in all the parts thereof. ... The second part, being a private looking glass for the femalei [sic] sex. ... London: printed by B. H. and are to be sold by most bookseller[s], 1717. ESTC No. T232023. Grub Street ID 257311.

Printed for B. H.

  • Aristotle's master-piece compleated, in two parts: the first containing the secrets of generation, in all the parts thereof. Treating Of the Benefit of Marriage, and the Prejudice of Unequal Matches, Signs of Insufficiency in Men or Women; Of the Infusion of the Soul; Of the Likeness of Children to Parents; Of Monstrous Births: The Cause and Cure of the Green-Sickness: A Discourse of Virginity, Directions and Cautions for Midwives. Of the Organs of Generation in Women, and the Fabrick of the Womb. The Use and Actions of the Genitals, Signs of Conception, and whether of a Male or Female. With a Word of Advice to both Sexes, in the Act of Copulation. And the Pictures of several Monstrous Births, &c. The second part, being a private looking-glass for the female-sex. Treating of the various Maladies of the Womb, and all other Distempers incident to Women of all Ages, with proper Remedies for the Cure of each. The whole being more Correct, than any thing of this Kind hitherto Published. London: printed for B. H. and are to be sold by most booksellers, 1702. ESTC No. N5713. Grub Street ID 40298.

Author

  • H., B.. True, but sad and dolefull nevves from Shrevvesbury. Expressed in two severall letters: whereof, the one was written to a gentleman of the Inner-Temple: the other, to a friend in London, relating at large the severall passages of the late skirmish at or near Worcester, between a party of each army, viz. Under the command of Prince Robert on the one side, and of Colonell Sands on the other. Confirmed by a letter sent from Prince Robert to His Majestie. Septemb. 24. With divers other circumstances of severall passages at that time. With the cornets mottoes. Octob. 10. 1642. [London]: Imprinted at Yorke, and now re-printed at London, 1642. ESTC No. R20601. Grub Street ID 82598.
  • H., B.. An ode on the anniversary of the coronation of King William, and Queen Mary. By B.H. A.B. of Trinity Colledge, Dublin. [Dublin: printed by Jo. Ray at the Three Naggs heads in Essex street, next door to the Custom house, 1693.]. ESTC No. R177761. Grub Street ID 69753.
  • H., B.. The parliament of bees. A fable. By the author of The fables of young Æsop, lately published. London: printed and sold by Benj. Harris, at the corner of Grace-Church-Street, next Corn-Hill, 1697. ESTC No. R43630. Grub Street ID 124550.
  • H., B.. The fables of Æsop, in English verse. With suitable new morals, adapted to each fable. Never before printed: containing the fable of the ass and the wolf. The bishop and the beggar. collier and the Fuller. country-man and the mouse. Devil refusing to marry. Parson, vintner and taylor. Æthiopian wash'd. Florentine and horse-courser. Fox and grapes. Kite and mouse. Parson and the pears. Young widow. Wolf and crow. sick man and priest. Sick hermit. Shepherd turn'd merchant. Pagan at mass. Marriners in a storm. And abundance more fables, too tedious to insert. [London]: Sold by A[bigail]. Baldwin in Warwick-lane, price 1 s. Where is to be had, Æsop's Fables in prose with cuts, price 1 s. And every man his own gauger; teaching to gauge, Brew fine ale, beer, mum, make wines, cordials and physick ale, &c. Price 1 s., [1700]. ESTC No. R177760. Grub Street ID 69752.
  • H., B.. The oracle of Avignon: or a new and true account of all the great actions and most remarkable occurrences of the life of the Pretender, From his first Attempts in the World, down to the Discovery of the late grand Conspiracy. Collected and digested from authentick memoirs. All deliver'd and express'd in the Words of the Antient Classicks; No Writer since the Augustan Age having been found, who had a Genius equal to the Subject. Being, a comico-prosaico-poetical essay on the actions of this Hero, by B----- H-----, his Poet-Laureat. In French and English. Part I. To be continued. London: printed for J. Roberts, in Warwicklane, and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, [1723]. ESTC No. T103537. Grub Street ID 157165.
  • H., B.. Some remarks on a pamphlet, intitled, The morality of religion, in a letter to the B. of W. By B. H. London: printed for T. Cooper, at the Globe in Pater-Noster Row, [1741]. ESTC No. T70383. Grub Street ID 294132.