Publications of George Edwards

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 for George Edwards

  • Hooker, Thomas. The danger of desertion: or, A farvvell sermon of Mr. Thomas Hooker, sometimes minister of Gods Word at Chainsford in Essex; but now of New England. Preached immediately before his departure out of England. Together with ten particular rules to be practised every day by converted Christians. London: printed by G. M. for George Edwards in the Old Baily in Greene-Arbour, at the signe of the Angell, 1641. ESTC No. R1512. Grub Street ID 63082.

Author

  • Edwards, George. A natural history of birds. Most of which have not been figur'd or describ'd, and others very little known from obscure or too brief Descriptions without Figures, or from Figures very ill design'd. Containing the figures of sixty birds and two quadrupedes, engrav'd on fifty-two copper plates, after curious Original Drawings from Life, and exactly colour'd. With full and accurate Descriptions. By George Edwards. London: printed for the author, at the College of Physicians in Warwick-Lane, M.DCC.XLIII. [1743]. ESTC No. T144870. Grub Street ID 191684.
  • Edwards, George. Histoire naturelle de divers oiseaux, qui n'avoient point encore éte figurez ni décrits, ... Par George Edwards. Traduit de l'Anglois par M. D. de la S. R. ... Londres: imprimé pour l'auteur, 1745. ESTC No. T145474. Grub Street ID 192210.
  • Edwards, George. Histoire naturelle de divers oiseaux, qui n'avoient pont encore été figurez ni décrits, ... II. partie. Par George Edwards. Traduit de l'Anglois par M. D. de la S. R. Londres: imprimé pour l'auteur, 1748. ESTC No. T145475. Grub Street ID 192211.
  • Edwards, George. A natural history of birds, the most of which have not hitherto been figured or described, and the rest, ... hitherto but little known. This part exhibits ... fifty-nine birds, engraven on fifty-two copper plates, and coloured ... Part III. By George Edwards, ... London: printed for the author, 1750-51. ESTC No. T144871. Grub Street ID 191685.
  • Edwards, George. A natural history of uncommon birds, and of some other rare and undescribed animals, quadrupedes, reptiles, fishes, insects, &c. Exhibited in two hundred and ten copper-plates, ... coloured after life. ... In four parts. By George Edwards, ... London: printed for the author, [1751]. ESTC No. T144874. Grub Street ID 191688.
  • Edwards, George. Histoire naturelle de divers oiseaux. Qui n'avoient point encore été figurés ni décrits, ... III. partie. Par George Edwards, ... Londres: imprimé pour l'auteur, 1751. ESTC No. T145476. Grub Street ID 192212.
  • Edwards, George. Histoire naturelle d'oiseaux peu communs: et d'autres animaux rares & qui n'ont pas été décrits, consistant en quadrupedes, reptiles, poissons, insectes, &c. Représentés sur cent dix planches en taille douce, ... En quatre parties. Par George Edwards, ... Londres: imprimé pour l'autour [sic], 1751. ESTC No. T145477. Grub Street ID 192213.
  • Edwards, George. Glanures d'histoire naturelle, consistant en figures de quadropedes, d'oiseaux, d'insectes, de plantes, &c. ... et colorés d'aprs nature, en cinquante planches. Par George Edwards, ... Et traduit de l'Anglois par J. du Plessis, ... [London: printed for the author, 1758-64]. ESTC No. T142300. Grub Street ID 189707.
  • Edwards, George. Gleanings of natural history, exhibiting figures of quadrupeds, birds, insects, plants, &c. ... With descriptions of seventy different subjects, designed, engraved, and coloured after nature, on fifty copper-plate prints. By George Edwards, ... London: printed for the author, at the Royal College of Physicians, 1758-64. ESTC No. N18047. Grub Street ID 7519.
  • Edwards, George. Essays upon natural history, and other miscellaneous subjects, by George Edwards, Fellow of the Royal Society, and of the Society of Antiquaries, London. To which is added, a catalogue, in generical order, of the birds, beasts, fishes, insects, plants, &c. contained in Mr. Edwards' Natural history. London: printed for J. Robson, Bookseller, at the Feathers in New Bond-Street, M,DCC,LXX. [1770]. ESTC No. N9453. Grub Street ID 54322.
  • Edwards, George. A catalogue of the birds, beasts, fishes, insects, plants, &c. Contained in Edwards's Natural History, in seven volumes, with their Latin names by Sir C. Linnæus, ... London: printed for J. Robson, 1776. ESTC No. T566. Grub Street ID 283002.
  • Edwards, George. Elements of fossilogy*: or, an arrangement of fossils, into classes, orders, genera, and species; with Their characters. By George Edwards, Esq;. London: printed by B. White, No. 63, Fleet Street, MDCCLXXVI. [1776]. ESTC No. T11431. Grub Street ID 166128.