Publications of William Watson

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 William Watson

  • Independent Native.. An address to the people of Ireland, on the present alarming state of the kingdom. By an independent native. Dublin: printed by William Watson and Son, 1798. ESTC No. N29431. Grub Street ID 18606.

Author

  • Watson, William. Experiments and observations tending to illustrate the nature and properties of electricity. In one Letter to Martin Folkes, Esq; President, and Two to the Royal Society. By William Watson, F.R.S. London: printed by Jacob Ilive, for the author, MDCCXLV. [1745]. ESTC No. T12248. Grub Street ID 173156.
  • Watson, William. Experiments and observations tending to illustrate the nature and properties of electricity. In one Letter to Martin Folkes, Esq; President, and Two to the Royal Society. By William Watson, F. R. S. London: printed for C. Davis, Printer to the Royal Society, against Gray's-Inn, Holbourn, MDCCXLVI. [1746]. ESTC No. T112414. Grub Street ID 164407.
  • Watson, William. A sequel to the Experiments and observations tending to illustrate the nature and properties of electricity: Wherein it is presumed, by a Series of Experiments expresly for that Purpose, that the Source of the Electrical Power, and its Manner of acting are demonstrated. Addressed to the Royal Society. By William Watson, F.R.S. London: printed for C. Davis, Printer to the Royal Society, against Gray's-Inn, Holbourn, MDCCXLVI. [1746]. ESTC No. T112415. Grub Street ID 164408.
  • Watson, William. Experiments and observations tending to illustrate the nature and properties of electricity. In one Letter to Martin Folkes, Esq; President, and Two to the Royal Society. By William Watson, F.R.S. London: printed for C. Davis, Printer to the Royal Society, against Gray's-Inn, Holborn, MDCCXLVI. [1746]. ESTC No. T12249. Grub Street ID 173167.
  • Watson, William. A sequel to the Experiments and observations tending to illustrate the nature and properties of electricity: ... Addressed to the Royal Society. By William Watson, F.R.S. Dublin: printed by George Faulkner, 1746. ESTC No. N22028. Grub Street ID 11389.
  • Watson, William. Experiments and observations tending to illustrate the nature and properties of electricity. In one Letter to Martin Folkes, Esq; President, and Two to the Royal Society. By William Watson, F.R.S. London: printed for C. Davis, Printer to the Royal Society, against Gray's-Inn, Holborn, MDCCXLVI. [1746]. ESTC No. T33848. Grub Street ID 264337.
  • Watson, William. Experiments and observations tending to illustrate the nature and properties of electricity. ... By William Watson, F.R.S. Dublin: printed, for George and Alexander Ewing, 1746. ESTC No. N9543. Grub Street ID 54419.
  • Watson, William. A sequel to the Experiments and observations tending to illustrate the nature and properties of electricity: Wherein it is presumed, by a Series of Experiments expresly for that Purpose, that the Source of the Electrical Power, and its Manner of acting are demonstrated. Addressed to the Royal Society. By William Watson, F.R.S. London: printed for C. Davis, Printer to the Royal Society, against Gray's-Inn, Holbourn, MDCCXLVI. [1746]. ESTC No. T47469. Grub Street ID 275421.
  • Watson, William. An account of the experiments made by some gentlemen of the Royal Society, in order to discover whether the electrical power would be sensible at great distances. With An Experimental Inquiry concerning the respective Velocities of Electricity and Sound. To which are added, Some further Inquiries into the Nature and Properties of Electricity; communicated to the Royal Society, by William Watson, F.R.S. London: printed for C. Davis, over-against Gray's-Inn Gate, Holborn, 1748. ESTC No. T12252. Grub Street ID 173191.
  • Watson, William. Observations upon the effects of electricity, applied to a tetanus, or muscular rigidity, of four months continuance. In a letter to the Royal Society. By William Watson, M.D. F.R.S. ... London: printed by W. Richardson and S. Clark, 1763. ESTC No. T10102. Grub Street ID 154932.
  • Watson, William. Observations upon the effects of lightning, with an account of the apparatus proposed to prevent it's mischiefs to buildings, ... being answers to certain questions proposed, by M. Calandrini, ... to William Watson, ... Read at the Royal Society June 28, 1764. London: printed in the year, 1764. ESTC No. T114068. Grub Street ID 165903.
  • Watson, William. An account of a series of experiments, instituted with a view of ascertaining the most successful method of inoculating the small-pox. By William Watson, M. D. Fellow of the Royal Society, one of the Trustees of the British Museum, and Member of the Royal College of Physicians. London: printed for J. Nourse, Bookseller to His Majesty, MDCCLXVIII. [1768]. ESTC No. T18938. Grub Street ID 224879.
  • Watson, William. An account of a series of experiments, instituted with a view of ascertaining the most successful method of inoculating the small-pox. By William Watson, ... Dublin: printed by John Exshaw, 1768. ESTC No. T229957. Grub Street ID 249773.