Emil Rybczak: Selling Drama in the Eighteenth Century: Thomas Johnson, Branding and Canonising from the Margins.
7: Imitating a Pirate Thomas Johnson’s branding strategies had far reaching consequences across the eighteenth century. These are manifest in both the material form that printed drama was to take, and the plays that publishers made central to their canons. This chapter extract discusses the influence that Johnson’s publications had in two instances. These should be taken as both indicative of the quality of his brand, and the capacity of peripheral publishers to influence those at the centre in the form and content of their publications. We first consider an extraordinary episode concerning Jacob Tonson’s (1665/6-1736) 1714 Works of Shakespeare.1 This reveals the influence of Johnson’s product on a publisher who is frequently characterised as the father of the English canon. We also explore the connection between the plays published by Johnson and those issued by George Risk of Dublin (c.1700-1762) circa 1725-26. Although there is not space in this extract, in the full chapter we then move forward to the publications of Thomas Lowndes (1719-1784), mainly of the 1770s, to witness the enduring significance of Johnson in the presentation of London publications. This encompasses Lowndes’ novels and his collaborative dramatic series. Finally, in the full discussion, we also address the influence of Johnson’s brand in the work of Robert and James Dodsley (1704-1764; 1724-1797), specifically their Annual Register, which was issued from the 1750s into the nineteenth century.2 The link between these publishers is their appropriation of Johnson’s distinctive TJ monogram. In The Printing Press as an Agent of Change Elizabeth Eisenstein suggests that the devices of the earliest printers could have ‘special occult meanings’ known only to the initiated.3 Although many publishers have made use of monograms, few have done so in so consistent and complex a manner as Johnson, nor indeed with such seemingly talismanic attraction. However, this most overt and identifiable form of evidence
1 William Shakespeare, The Works of Mr. William Shakespear (London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1714). Two variants bear the imprint (London: Printed for J. Tonson: and are to be sold by J. Knapton and D. Midwinter, A. Betsworth [sic], W. Taylor, T. Varnam and J. Osborn, and J. Browne, 1714) and (London: printed for J. Tonson, E. Curll, J. Pemberton, and K. Sanger: and are to be sold by J. Knapton and D. Midwinter, A. Betsworth [sic], W. Taylor, T. Varnam and J. Osborn, and J. Browne, 1714). 2 Various imprints. First issue Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politicks, and Literature, of the Year 1758 (London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley, 1759). 3 Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge; New York: CUP, 1980), p. 280.
1 should elucidate rather than obscure the many other means by which Johnson affected the mainstream canonical tradition. His influences include the use of a pocket format, most especially octavo but also duodecimo, clean and understated title pages, editorial interventions combined with a limited textual apparatus, and the very idea of a play series by a variety of authors unified under a distinctive title or house style.4 If we step back from details of format to make the more general (but not uncontroversial) assessment that texts as consequential agents only exist in the context of their material reproduction, we can begin to see the more far-reaching influence Johnson and his piratical brethren have had on the national psyche. The flyleaf blurb to Harry M. Solomon’s The Rise of Robert Dodsley suggests his is the first biography of an individual bookseller to integrate the ideas of Eisenstein concerning the print phenomenon as a powerful factor in historical change.5 Solomon’s work is a comprehensive biography and suggests the active part that Dodsley played in the literary world. However, the author does not follow Eisenstein in drawing out the more far-reaching social consequences of the publisher’s activities. Solomon demonstrates that Dodsley’s career stands at the intersection of Augustan and Romantic literature, but does not address how the shift from one literary epoch to another might have come about.6 This is because the biographically oriented author is necessarily focussed on the work of an individual and not the cultural tendencies of which his business practices were a consequence. Unless we recognise how what people read influences their ideas and actions, it is easy to read the details and not the implications. Solomon claims ‘Most earlier booksellers [than Dodsley] were un- learned tradesmen, and the profession was not afforded much prestige, nor did it exercise great influence.’7 This statement is disproved by the specific debts that the Dodsleys owed to Johnson. Furthermore, such a statement does not fit well with a characterisation of Solomon’s book as integrating the work of Eisenstein. In her book the author demonstrates the extraordinary ingenuity of printers, most frequently also booksellers, from the beginnings of the trade, and suggests the significant influence their work had on shaping European history. Eisenstein also emphasises the special
4 This final point is repeatedly stressed by Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume in The Publication of Plays in London 1660-1800 (London: The British Library, 2015), esp. pp. 245-48. 5 Harry M. Solomon, The Rise of Robert Dodsley (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996). 6 Solomon, Robert Dodsley, p. 264. 7 Solomon, Robert Dodsley, p. 51.
2 position of printer-booksellers as marrying the roles of artisan, businessman and scholar.8 Dodsley was part of this tradition but he did not create it. Solomon suggests that Dodsley used innovative techniques and so was influential in what and how the public read. The consequence of this is that he affected what canon was formed and how people would encounter it. The idea of literature that Dodsley perpetuated continues to shape the cultural standard by which we measure ourselves and our perception of the world. With his focus on an individual publisher Solomon is forced to leave unanswered where Dodsley’s innovations came from. I maintain that they were inspired by and tapped into a market created by the actions of earlier publishers, specifically Johnson, whose own innovations were the consequence of socio-economic pressures felt on account of his geographical and English-cultural marginality. I frequently refer to such men as peripheral, in light of their own and contemporary estimation. However, Johnson and his counterparts in areas of English-language publishing outside London were actually central to the long-term formation of a national canon and British cultural identity. This thesis builds on the work of Eisenstein in interrogating the agency of an individual printer-bookseller, but I supplement her ideas with a model of cultural influence which could not exist in the earlier period of printing with which she is concerned. As an emergent industry, printing was conducted in a wide constellation of areas which makes meaningless any divisions between dominant centre and emergent periphery. In Britain at least the significance of the capital did not emerge until the Stationer’s Company was recognised by royal charter in 1557. The full implications of the copyright system for discouraging innovation did not become apparent until the Statute of Anne in 1710, 8 Ann. c. 21. The following chapter shows some of the specific debts which are owned to Johnson, whose work began in earnest around this time. It suggests a centripetal model of cultural development that invites further testing and development in analysis of the practice and productions of other peripheral publishers across the eighteenth century.
8 Eisenstein, Printing Press, p. 248, 521 and passim.
3 Tonson, Curll and Darby In 1709 Jacob Tonson issued the first eighteenth-century Works of Shakespeare.9 His poems were not included in this edition since Tonson held the copyrights for the plays only. This created the opportunity for Edmund Curll (1674/5-1747) to publish a supplementary volume that contained these, with ‘Critical Remarks’ and an ‘Essay’ by Charles Gildon (c.1665-1724).10 This volume was designed to augment the Tonson series, and was therefore published in the same octavo format. Curll’s title page, like Tonson’s, bears no emblem whatsoever. However, Curll did not copy all aspects of Tonson’s design (see fig.s 1 and 2).11 The imprints of these publications clearly display their variant origins. Likewise the Tonson volumes contain engraved frontispieces that were not duplicated in the Curll volume. Curll would seem to have been incorporated more fully in Tonson’s 1714 reissue of the Works. Curll seems to have held the proprietary rights to Shakespeare’s poems, and the success of his 1710 publication suggests that the public expected their inclusion in a complete Works. Many readers bound Curll’s volume uniformly with those of Tonson, as Curll had hoped.12 There exist three states of Tonson’s collection title page for this second edition.13 The first version states that the Works comes in eight volumes, and bears Tonson’s name only. The second again claims eight volumes with the name of Tonson, and adds various booksellers from whom the plays might be purchased. The third state is titled as consisting of nine volumes, and Curll and his associates are added to the list of Tonson’s collaborators. Collections sold by Tonson containing the plays only would bear the first of these title pages, and those by his associates the second. He clearly wished to minimise the number of copies that associated him and his star author with a publisher with whom he thought he had little
9 William Shakespeare, The Works of Mr. William Shakespear; in six volumes. (London: printed for Jacob Tonson, 1709). 10 William Shakespeare, The Works of Mr. William Shakespear. Volume the Seventh. (London: printed for E. Curll and E. Sanger, 1710). 11 Unless otherwise stated, all images are taken from copies available on Historical Texts
4 5
6 in common. He and Curll had already had differences over Prior’s poems in 1706/7- 1708.14 In the 1714 edition the title page of Curll’s ninth volume emulates Tonson’s volume titles more closely than in 1709-10 (see fig.s 3 and 4). Curll sought to capitalise on customers’ understanding that his and Tonson’s volumes constituted a single complete set. There is however a notable exception to their similarity. Whereas Tonson had previously used no emblems on his title pages, in this edition he used the Shakespeare’s Head that had been the sign of his shop since 1710.15 Curll was therefore obliged to provide an emblem in the same place, between two horizontal rules. However, the appropriation of the Shakespeare’s Head was a step that he, Tonson, or more likely both, were unprepared to take. Tonson was willing to share an imprint with Curll since the market demanded it, but to allow a rival to use his new logo, representing the ideal of literature that Tonson was cultivating, was wholly unacceptable. Curll may also have been cagey about subsuming his own publication so entirely within Tonson’s. Curll chose to substitute for Tonson’s Shakespeare’s Head a woodcut of intertwined vines that closely resembles Johnson’s monogram. This is a different actual woodblock to any used by Johnson. However, the significance of this for brand differentiation pales when one considers that Johnson used at least four monogram forms. The curvature of the two main vine stems is altered, but it is hard to believe that this woodcut was not taken from one appearing in a Johnson publication. If this is the case, we can be certain that Johnson’s work was circulating in London. As I have suggested in chapters three and four, his plays were intended primarily for continental markets, but this did not prevent copies finding their way to the heart of the English trade. Whether Curll and his associates deliberately sought Johnson’s volumes or simply came across them cannot be known. In 1709 Curll advertised that he stocked books newly arrived from Holland (and Spain).16 But why should Curll, already piggybacking his publication onto Tonson’s by the appropriation of his style, and still claiming ownership of it via his extensive imprint, wish to complicate his publication strategy further by reproducing an alternative form of Johnson’s emblem on his title page?
14Ralph Straus, The Unspeakable Curll: Being Some Account of Edmund Curll, Bookseller; to Which is Added a Full List of His Books (London: Chapman and Hall, 1927), p. 21; Baines and Rogers, Curll, pp. 27-8. 15 There is some uncertainty regarding this date, discussed in Stephen Bernard, The Literary Correspondences of the Tonsons (Oxford: OUP, 2015), p. 173. 16 Straus, Unspeakable Curll, p. 19; Baines and Rogers, Curll, p. 25.
7 8
9 To answer this question we must return to Tonson’s edition of 1709. Tonson is famous for pioneering the new multi-volume literary octavos which, with duodecimos, would define the coming century’s literary Works. Nevertheless, in this edition of Shakespeare, Tonson’s volume title pages are less elegant than they might be. The typography is uneven, there is no neo-Classical emblem, and the wide double rules do not anticipate the Augustan elegance of his 1714 edition. Grant, Murphy, and Milhous and Hume all argue that Johnson’s publication of octavo plays encouraged Tonson to reduce his format even further to duodecimo.17 Johnson’s modern title page layout must likewise have influenced Tonson in the reorganisation of his 1714 title pages (see fig. 5). Tonson’s elegant mise en page is complemented by roundels of Shakespeare’s Head within laurels which recall Johnson’s monogram use in his 1710- 1712 Collection, published between Tonson’s first two editions of Shakespeare’s Works. Curll used Johnson’s emblem in his ninth volume of Shakespeare’s Works since he recognised Johnson’s influence on Tonson. He wished to make this debt public without compromising his own investment in the Shakespeare project. Curll was demonised by more established members of the London book trade as a notorious rogue.18 The tradition of his being an outsider is continued in such rehabilitating assessments as Straus’s Unspeakable Curll. Straus, however, seeks to reinterpret such a position as a presumed pirate as a catalyst to Curll’s innovations. The more modern assessment of Pat Rogers reintegrates Curll into his context and suggests that, whilst formally an outsider, he was in many ways traditional in his practices. She highlights that two ways by which he did irritate his contemporaries were with the sophisticated deployment of advertising schemes and the cultivation of extra-textual controversy as
17 Teresa Grant, ‘Tonson’s Jonson: Making the “Vernacular Canon” in the Early Eighteenth Century’, in The Oxford Handbook of Ben Jonson (OUP, 2015), pp. 19-20
10 11 Although a means of promoting his books.19 Work like that of Straus seems implicit in Rogers’ criticism:
Cast in the slightly unlikely role of a heroic outsider, battering the citadel of elite authorship, he [Curll] commands respect for his effrontery in taking on men like Pope and Swift, and for his bold innovations in soft pornography. No one who has studied his career in any detail will find these modern versions of his character and achievement wholly plausible.20
The synthesis that Rogers presents is useful in recognising the considerable number of relatively learned works that were legitimately published by Curll, but this in no way detracts from the significance of those innovations precipitated by his exclusion from the Stationers’ Company and own enterprising zeal. It rather demonstrates that one does not have to be a villain to be an outsider, and that publishers at the social as well as geographical margins of the trade could be unfairly demonised for practises which their competitors envied rather than despised. Curll must have felt considerable sympathies for the position of Johnson. Therefore, the ability to cultivate an implicit association with him through the Shakespeare episode was an opportunity not to be missed. Curll did not act illegally in his publication of a supplementary volume to Tonson’s Works, even though this was considered an underhand tactic.21 Part of the reason Curll so frustrated the dominant members of the trade was his care in walking the line between working the system and becoming legally culpable for his actions.
19 Pat Rogers, ‘Edmund Curll and the Publishing Trade’, in Producing the Eighteenth-Century Book: Writers and Publishers in England, 1650-1800, ed. by Laura L. Runge and Pat Rogers (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2009), pp. 215-34 (pp. 227-30). 20 Ibid., p. 215. This view is also expressed in Pat Rogers and Paul Baines, ‘The Attribution of Books to Publishers: Edmund Curll and the Memoirs of John Macky’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 102 (2008) 29-60 (pp. 30-31), and Baines and Rogers, Curll, p. 5 and passim. In both the articles and book the authors draw our attention to Curll’s collaboration with the government as an informant, but this is in no way antithetical to, and is to a considerable extent indicative of, his friction with representatives of the publishing elite. 21 There is a reference to Curll and Tonson having some shared publishing interests in 1717-1718 in Bernard, Correspondences of the Tonsons, pp. 171-2, although the letter is obscure. It is however clear that the correspondent, Thomas Pyle (1674-1756), has been outraged by Curll’s tactics in publishing his work and is appealing to Tonson to act upon this. In a second letter of 1717 Edward Young (1683- 1765) writes to Tonson in order to complain at length of Curll’s misrepresentation of his views in publishing an abridged letter, although he has no real hope of redress (pp. 173-5). Whilst we do not have Tonson’s opinion of Curll in his own hand both these letters imply a shared condemnation of the bookseller’s practices. In Rogers and Baines, ‘Attribution of Books’, p. 40, the authors use their experience in the totality of Curll’s output to suggest ‘Curll had no observable ties at all with many prominent figures in the trade, and if any of their names appear on a title-page, this constitutes prima facie a reason to doubt his involvement.’
12 As he later chose to antagonise his arch-nemesis Alexander Pope, and capitalise on his fame, by adopting the ‘Pope’s Head’ as the sign of his shop, Curll might have copied Tonson’s Shakespeare’s Head as easily as Johnson’s monogram.22 However, since Curll himself operated at the fringes of legality he chose an alternative emblem which suggested that even publishers as prominent as Jacob Tonson were influenced by the work of their competitors, at least one of whom was a pirate. When Curll adorns Tonson’s 1714 title page layout with Johnson’s monogram, its debt to Johnson’s Collection becomes difficult to avoid. That there survives no contemporary comment on this similarity may suggest that knowledge of Johnson’s Collection was not as widespread as Curll had imagined; or that he had intended his gesture to be understood by him and Tonson only. Curll must have been frustrated by his condemnation for practices that were likewise undertaken by the most prestigious members of the trade. Curll never intended himself as a ‘tribune of the under-class’, but this does not mean he did not work against existing power-structures within the trade to further his own interests, nor that his actions to this end could not have consequences beyond his immediate intentions.23 Whether or not Curll would have wished to join the ranks of his more respectable antagonists if he could is a moot point.24 What is significant in all of this is that Johnson’s branding was seen to be of a high enough quality by Tonson that he sought to emulate it, perhaps in the creation of an emblem itself. Tonson used his Shakespeare’s Head as a frontispiece device for the first time in the 1714 Shakespeare Works. This provides clear evidence for the influence of the margins on the presentation of culture at the centre. This relationship is furthermore reciprocal. I have suggested in chapter four that Johnson removed play titles from his volume title pages in response to consumer demand for being able to arrange collections as one wished. When Johnson’s attempts to secure cultural capital via more traditional means had met with disappointing results, he redefined his product in this way as a means of fulfilling a public desire that went unacknowledged by his competitors. Johnson may also have been influenced in the reorganisation of his title pages circa 1721-1722 by the clean lines and pared down arrangement of
22 For how it was later reproduced by George Risk, see below. 23 Baines and Rogers, Curll, p. 7. 24 That he did is suggested ibid., p. 8, although without immediate justification.
13 Tonson’s 1714 Shakespeare Works (see fig. 6).25 An accurate history of the dissemination and canonisation of literature in the eighteenth century cannot narrow its horizons to the work of a handful of London publishers but must acknowledge the fundamental significance of those at the margins. Contemporary readers were able to acquire books from wherever they desired, as the extremely varied contents of contemporary sammelbände demonstrate. For this reason Londoners responded anxiously to innovations at the periphery and perpetuated a reciprocal network of influences, the mapping of which is essential in formulating an accurate representation of how the canon was formed.
Curll’s Shakespeare continuation was neither the first nor last time his printer, John Darby the Younger, used this particular version of Johnson’s monogram. It first appeared in four 1713 editions of John Gale’s A Thanksgiving Sermon.26 One cannot imagine the need for any kind of subterfuge in the choice of emblem for this legitimate and non-literary publication.27 Darby must have encountered Johnson’s publications and been taken by the monogram as an aspect of branding. He commissioned a copy, which accounts for the slight change in form from Johnson’s original. He furthermore sought to make the monogram his own. The main vines of Johnson’s versions suggest a ‘TJ’. The alterations to Darby’s version mean that it more closely resembles ‘JD’. It is almost impossible to extract these letters from Johnson’s original. Darby must have thought Johnson’s publications were not so widespread in London that his use of the monogram would lead to confusion. Primarily a printer rather than a publisher, Darby had a limited portfolio of copyrights. However, the imprint of this sermon suggests that it belonged to Darby. He therefore had complete freedom to construct his title page as he wished. Of the several times the monogram was copied directly, only Darby altered it to represent his own initials. This suggests that the publishers referred to elsewhere in this chapter wished to inhabit Johnson’s brand more directly, as opposed to the idea of a
25 From Fol. PR 1241 J61 vol. 1. 26 John Gale, A Thanksgiving Sermon Preach’d November 5. 1713. (London: printed by John Darby, 1713). This reference is applicable to all four editions, although they can be differentiated by Darby’s listing of the edition number on the title page. 27 The use of other publisher’s emblems in order to cover up piracy is attested by Michael Treadwell, ‘On False and Misleading Imprints in the London Book Trade 1660-1750’, in Fakes & Frauds: Varieties of Deception in Print and Manuscript, ed. by Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 1996), pp. 29-46 (p. 39).
14
15 monogram as a general mark of distinction. Other forms of monogram were used by a variety of publishers in this period. If the monogram was intended to identify your house only, then the more different it was from those of your competitors, the better.28 Another early publication that Darby’s woodcut appears in is the anonymous A true list of the lords Spiritual and Temporal.29 The printer of this short octavo is unidentified on ESTC, but I propose Darby since the work is within his interests, was published in the same year as the Thanksgiving Sermon, and displays his new device. The second edition of 1715 does list Darby as the printer.30 As an ornate flourish to ones title page the monogram sets an appropriately distinguished tone for either this or the sermon. The only book this woodcut would appear in after the Curll volume was, like the Thanksgiving Sermon, a solo publication. This was the second volume of the Select Works of John Dennis.31 Its title page is organised with clear reference to Johnson’s first Collection and the 1714 Tonson Shakespeare (see fig. 7). The monogram does not dominate the publication since it occurs only in the second volume. The first displays a mask and fruit basket device. This final use of the monogram by Darby may have been without particular agenda. It seems likely that after Darby premiered his device in 1713, Curll saw it and recognised its similarity to Johnson’s, and finalised his ideas for snubbing Tonson. He may have communicated the full implications of his scheme to Darby. Its use in the Curll Shakespeare would have compromised the device in its altered state as belonging to Darby, since the point of its inclusion in the Shakespeare publication was its debt to Johnson. This explains why it was not used for another four years, and then only in a second volume. The appropriative tendencies of Darby are visible in his adoption of other devices. In the first three editions of his The Medleys for the Year 1711, Darby uses three different title page woodcuts.32 One edition of 1712 uses a generic arrangement
28 See for instance the productions of George Faulkner (c.1703-1775), Oliver Nelson (c.1720-1775) and Richard James (c.1720-1757). 29 A true list of the lords Spiritual and Temporal (London: Printed for A. Baldwin, 1713). 30 A True and Correct List of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal (London: printed by J. Darby, and sold by J. Roberts, 1715). 31 John Dennis, The select works of Mr. John Dennis. Vol. II. (London: Printed by J. Darby, 1718). 32 The medleys for The Year 1711. To which are prefix’d, The Five Whig-Examiners. (London: Printed by John Darby, and sold by Egbert Sanger at the Middle-Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet, 1712); The medleys For the Year 1711. To which are prefix’d, The Five Whig-Examiners. (London: Printed by John Darby, and sold by Egbert Sanger at the Posthouse in Fleetstreet, near Temple-Bar, 1712); The medleys for The Year 1711. To which are Prefix’d The Five whig-examiners. The Second Edition. (London: Printed by J. D. and are to be Sold by Tho. Corbett, 1714).
16 Te 17 of printers’ flowers, the other a more distinctive floral device (see fig.s 8 and 9). However, the new edition of 1714 uses the device of a basket with cascading flowers. This is extremely similar to that used by Johnson in Dryden and Davenant’s The Tempest (see figs. 10 and 11). This is the edition we encountered in chapter six with my discussion of Johnson’s editorial policy.33 This basket device is used so rarely by Johnson that there can be no strategic significance to its appropriation. It instead provides evidence that Darby had access to a variety of Johnson plays, displaying both this and the TJ monogram. Darby seems to have appreciated the aesthetic value of Johnson’s devices and to have copied them at will. This story is complicated by the fact that an extremely similar device is used by Tonson in various volumes of The Spectator from 1712-1715.34 Across the eight volumes Tonson uses a variety of figures.35 These include a floral basket on volumes four and five which is almost identical to Johnson and Darby’s woodcuts (see fig. 12). Since these two volumes were printed in 1712 and 1713 they seem to owe their inspiration to Johnson’s Tempest, which would suggest that Tonson also had seen it. I cannot say for certain whether Darby’s version of 1714 derives from Tonson or Johnson, but it is quite possible that it is taken from both. What is remarkable at this stage is not Tonson’s use of the woodcut, which may have an alternative, unidentified source and was not particularly associated with Johnson. Instead, the changing woodcuts of The Spectator draw our attention to the process of Tonson’s transition to a commitment to the Shakespeare’s Head emblem. In the earlier volumes of the Spectator Tonson has decided he wants a frontispiece device. There is however remarkable disunity in the collection because he has not settled on a definitive form for this. It seems that both he and Darby were inspired by Johnson in the use of images. It was only gradually that Tonson came to understand the significance of applying one image consistently across a range of products.
To sum up, Curll must have recognised the influence Johnson’s Collection had on the format of Tonson’s second edition of Shakespeare, and Darby’s new monogram, and saw the reuse of this specific logo in this specific context to be an ideal means to
33 Sr. William Davenant and Mr. John Dryden, The Tempest: or, the enchanted island. (London [The Hague]: [Thomas Johnson], 1710). 34 See volume 1: The Spectator. (London: Printed for S. Buckley; and J. Tonson, 1712). 35 1 (1712) cherubim; 3 (1713) floral spray; 4, 5 (1712; 1713) Johnson’s floral basket; 6, 7 (1713) flower basked on pedestal; 8 (1715) Shakespeare’s head. I have as yet been unable to view a first edition of volume 2, but this displays Johnson’s floral basket in its second and third editions.
18 19 20 21 22 not ca 23 mock what he saw as Tonson’s pretension to authority. Solomon writes ‘in contrast to the contemptible Curlls of the trade – Dodsley had the respect for authorial rights and the dignity of letters of a Jacob Tonson or Bernard Lintot’ (1675-1736).36 Authorial rights only existed in so far as they corresponded with the publishers’ rights and interest in protecting their copy. Tonson and Lintot did oppose the piracy of their authors but in doing so they were protecting their own interests. This was framed by such publishers as were members of the Stationers’ Company as protecting the ‘dignity of letters’. However, this dignity refers primarily to the legitimisation of expensive, albeit high-quality, editions. Since Curll did not possess so many copyrights he chose to reprint rather than to print. Whilst reprinting by non-copyright holders did frequently lead to a degradation of the text this was not necessarily the case, as we have seen with Johnson’s Tempest. Through his actions in the Shakespeare episode Curll not only suggested Tonson’s debts, but hoped to point out the quality that another pirate could achieve. He attempted to undermine the façade of Tonson’s monopoly, that of protecting the dignity of the work, and instead make visible its actual motivation in the protection of his copyrights.
George Risk George Risk, like Johnson, operated beyond the pale of English copyright. Neither were actually pirates, nor did they see themselves as such. For Risk, this was because reprinting in Dublin was both legal and a custom of the trade, so long as products were not exported to England. It was also because the real outsiders to the Irish trade were the Catholic quarter-brothers who were partially excluded from their Guild of St. Luke the Evangelist. Despite the impunity with which Risk and his colleagues could reprint English books, each vigorously protected his own prerogatives as the first publisher of a book in Ireland. Commentators on the Irish book trade in the eighteenth century reiterate how Irish publishers were a thorn in the side of the English industry. That is, not that their cheaper reprints flooded the London market, although the few imports that did arrive were trumpeted loudly by members of the Stationers’ Company, but rather that their dominance of the Irish market prevented Londoners from getting any kind of foothold in this dependency.37 Like Johnson, Irish printers were therefore producing distinctive products primarily for their own market, rather
36 Solomon, Robert Dodsley, p. 52. 37 Mary Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, 1550-1800 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989), p. 87, 108.
24 than attempting to compete with the London trade on its home ground. Marketing cheaper editions for a smaller market, Dublin printers operated within narrower profit margins than their London counterparts. To this end, chapbooks and ephemera were some of the most desirable products one could produce. They could be manufactured with minimum outlay and had a reasonably steady guarantee of sale. After these, poems and plays were popular works because they shared the same properties, which minimised a publisher’s investment risk, and might be considered the next step up the cultural ladder for the consumer of ephemera. Plays were also popular since the vibrant and highly contested theatrical scene in Dublin, recently attested by Helen Burke in Riotous Performances, encouraged a voracious market for cheap printed drama.38 Christopher Morash likewise suggests that in Dublin there was a strong correlation between printing and performing plays, in contrast to my suggestion in chapters three and four that Johnson’s English-speaking continental market read plays instead of seeing them.39 Many Irish plays published in this period copy the London practice, rejected by Johnson, of claiming that the text is printed as it is now performed at a particular theatre. Modern assessments of the quality of Irish publications attempt to defend the object of their study by suggesting that their material inferiority to London editions was beyond their producers’ control. James Phillips argues that their poor quality originates with certain failures in the Guild of St Luke, the focus of the Irish trade.40 Whilst his reasoning is entirely valid, we should not dismiss the possibility that Irish publishers produced inferior books not because they could manage no better for material reasons, but because they wanted to. They were catering to the perceived demands of their home market, where competitive pricing was the primary means of sale. Pollard argues that if London and Dublin books had been the same price then Dubliners would invariably have preferred the former, possessing as they did greater
38 Helen Burke, Riotous Performances: The Struggle for Hegemony in the Irish Theater, 1712-1784 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003). The author of Four letters Originally written in French, Relating to the Kingdom of Ireland, Accompanied with Remarks. (Dublin: Printed by R. Reilly, for Edward Exshaw, 1739), p. 24, suggests that the Aungier Street Theatre of Sir Edward Lovett Pearce (1699?-1733) was finer than any in Europe. 39 Christopher Morash, ‘Theatre and Print, 1550-1800’, in The Oxford History of the Irish Book: Volume III: The Irish Book in English 1550-1800, ed. by Raymond Gillespie and Andrew Hadfield (Oxford: OUP, 2006), pp. 319-34 (p. 323 and passim). 40 James Phillips, Printing and Bookselling in Dublin, 1670-1800: A Bibliographical Enquiry (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1998), p. 24.
25 cultural capital.41 To this end, Irish advertisements often quoted the higher price of London editions for comparison.42 William Smith Clark quotes from the Dublin Weekly Journal of the 3rd April 1725 ‘If a good Piece happens at any time to be wrote among ourselves, there is scarce one in ten will vouchsafe it a reading, unless it be made authentick by being printed at London.’43 The field I am describing would benefit from a detailed comparison of what was performed and printed in London and Dublin respectively, in order to identify exactly what lines of canonical dominance prevailed. It is however clear that the market in Dublin for printed plays was heavily influenced by the Dublin repertory, which whilst being derived from was also distinct from that produced in London. We have already suggested that Johnson’s canon was controlled by the London repertory. Therefore, the wholesale importation into Ireland of Johnson’s Collection could not have been the most satisfying solution to the Irish demand for printed drama. Furthermore, Pollard suggests that the importation of continental books was only profitable for such esoterica as carried a high production cost and cultural capital; primarily scientific, theological and philosophical works.44 This was due to the danger of sea routes and consequently exorbitant fees for transportation.45 Once one had paid to have plays like Johnson’s, costing just 6d or 8d, brought over from Holland, one might as well have had them imported from England.46 What imports there were in Risk’s period were conducted primarily by Peter de Hondt of The Hague to his Dublin agents Peter Lautal (trading 1741-1744) and Jean-Pierre Droz (trading 1744- d.1751).47 Finally, many of those who did acquire continental books employed their
41 Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, p. 83, 115-16. Even the pro Old English Four Letters acknowledges, p. 22, ‘As to pleasure; every entertainment which has the authority of Fashion in England, prevails here, and some it may be, in a yet greater degree.’ 42 Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, p. 132. 43 William Smith Clark, The Early Irish Stage: The Beginnings to 1720 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1955), p. 160. See also William Zachs, The First John Murray and the Late Eighteenth-Century London Book Trade (Oxford: OUP for The British Academy, 1998), p. 109. 44 Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, p. 163. See also the tables of imports and exports between Ireland and the Netherlands in Phillips, Printing and Bookselling, pp. 116-20. 45 Máire Kennedy, ‘Foreign Language Books, 1700-1800’, in Oxford History of the Irish Book, ed. Gillespie and Hadfield, pp. 368-82 (pp. 372-73). See also the comparison of book prices in various countries in Four letters, p. 23, where the author also suggests that in Ireland ‘The Empire of letters […] is farther extended than you imagine’, complemented by a superfluity of bookshops and good books. 46 Sarah Crider Arndt, ‘Balancing Theoretical Models and Local Studies: The Case of William St Clair and Copyright in Ireland’, in The Perils of Print Culture: Book, Print and Publishing History in Theory and Practice, ed. by Eve Patten and Hason McElligott (Palgrave, 2014), pp. 82-95 (p. 87)
26 own European agents and bypassed Irish booksellers entirely.48 It would appear that George Risk was a witness to the success of Johnson’s productions in The Netherlands but, rather than becoming a distributor for Johnson, he sought to emulate certain aspects of his books in his own work. In Risk’s case, over-enthusiasm with regards to branding strategies generated contradictory imperatives that reveal the experimental tendencies of the emergent Irish industry. It only grew to significance from the beginning of the eighteenth century with the benefits accrued by its conspicuous absence from the Statue of Anne.49 Although this chapter is primarily concerned with the influence of the margins on the centre, it is apparent in this case that Johnson’s product influenced another so- called pirate. This is significant since recent commentators have dismissed the possibility that Londoners were concerned by Johnson’s developments at The Hague.50 These same authors do however acknowledge the anxiety the Irish trade caused in London and the consequence of this in the Importation Act of 1739, 12 George II, c. 36. If Johnson influenced Risk and Risk worried the London trade, then Johnson was affecting it through this conduit also. When we move away from vague influences and anxiety to consider the precise manner in which the likes of Johnson or Risk affected the practices of their London competitors, we can see how the productions of the Netherlands and Ireland, as the major satellites of the English publishing world, constituted a two-pronged provocation to the central market.51 That the Irish trade was made up of loose and variable associations only nominally controlled by the Guild of St. Luke made it an environment, like the Netherlands and unlike London, conducive to the development of new practices.52 It had a strong relationship with continental and specifically Dutch publishing since the influx of Huguenot refugee booksellers into Ireland following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). When aspects of Johnson’s branding were copied by the Irish the potential influence of the periphery on the centre was multiplied significantly. Later in the century, the appropriation of their innovations by Scots would bring such
48 Toby Barnard, ‘Libraries and Collectors, 1700-1800’, in Oxford History of the Irish Book, ed. Gillespie and Hadfield, pp. 111-34 (pp. 115-6); Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, p. 55. 49 Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, p. 11, 65. 50 Milhous and Hume, Publication of Plays in London, pp. 108-9. 51 In The Cases of the Appellants and Respondents in the Cause of Literary Property (1774) Ireland and Holland are cited as the primary seats of illicit publishing activity. See Phillips, Printing and Bookselling, p. 106. 52 Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, p. 181.
27 techniques as were developed in Ireland and the Netherlands to fruition, achieved through a head-on collision with the London trade.
Between 1714-1757 George Risk issued around 200 publications, of which almost half were plays. From 1726, he published many of these with John Smith (c.1700- 1771) and George Ewing (c.1700-1764), although this partnership tailed off in the 1740s and 1750s. Those plays which the publishers issued together have unadorned or inconsequentially decorated title pages, as did those that Risk published before 1725. However, from 1725-1726 all his play titles were adorned.53 Risk first used a variant of Johnson’s monogram (22 works, 28 editions) and later a copy of Tonson’s Shakespeare’s Head roundel (14 works, 15 editions) (see figs. 13 and 14). Neither Smith nor Ewing made sustained use of a particular emblem of their own. Because Risk’s catalogue seems to be dependent on what was popular in the Dublin theatres, no definite relation between his and Johnson’s canons can be established. There is however some correspondence between the plays available from Johnson and those available from Risk. The reinvention of Johnson’s monogram on Risk’s title pages suggests that there was a debt, although this was primarily in the ambition to publish a cheap canon of drama that was available as individual plays. There was also an aesthetic debt to Johnson, visible if one compares Risk’s use of a monogram to that of the earliest Irish publication to display one, Aaron Rhames’ Ovid of 1710 (see fig. 15).54 Various later plays published or republished by Risk alone continued to display the monogram or Shakespeare’s Head. This seems to have been undertaken in an ad hoc way that is not indicative of any prolonged or identifiable strategy. Whilst Risk appropriated Johnson’s brand, he differed in his understanding as to how that brand should be deployed. We have seen that Johnson used his monogram across his publications. He therefore positioned his brand as representing him, his house, and all that he produced. Risk produced two editions of Steele’s Christian Hero (1725; 1737), and one of George Ogle’s The Liffy (1726), that display the monogram, and one edition of Granville’s Poems (1726) that displays the Shakespeare’s Head. Apart from these, Risk used the emblems only on his plays. The
53 Mary Pollard, A Dictionary of Members of the Dublin Book Trade 1550-1800 (London: Bibliographical Society, 2000) is an invaluable resource. However, on this occasion the author incorrectly suggests that the monogram was used by Risk from c.1718 (p. 496). For a short title catalogue of Risk’s publications bearing the relevant frontispiece devices see appendix 2. 54 P. Ovidii Nasonis Sulmonensis, Epistolarum Heroidum Liber. (Dublinii: Typis A. Rhames, Impensis Eliphalis Dobson, 1710).
28 Hero He 29
30 I 31 brand he acquired from Johnson was not, therefore, appropriated by Risk as a general image, but used to tie his plays together as an entity coherent unto themselves. Those anomalous items such as the Christian Hero look, to the unsuspecting eye, remarkably like one of Risk’s plays (see fig. 16). Although we do not know how widely Johnson’s plays were circulated in Ireland, Risk’s appropriation of the monogram indicates that he saw them as a flagship of the publisher’s art, although, like Darby in London, sufficiently scarce that he could copy Johnson’s emblem without being accused of theft. It is possible that Risk only had access to Johnson’s plays and that this precipitated his deployment of the monogram as indicating a particular genre. It should be noted that the plays Risk published with either of the emblems were issued in octavo. This is despite duodecimo being generally more popular in Ireland from the 1720s, on account of its cost-saving merits.55 Milhous and Hume suggest dramatic publications usually retailed for 1s, £10-15 in today’s money.56 Their octavo format means that Risk’s plays could have been bound up with Johnson’s, and so Risk’s intention could have been to piggyback his publications onto Johnson’s series as a home-grown supplement. This is unconvincing for several reasons. Firstly, the aforementioned difficulty and expense of importing Dutch books into Ireland, and the disproportionate nature of this for cheap publications. Second, there is too much repetition of Johnson’s selection of plays in those published by Risk for the two canons to mesh together coherently. To extend ones survey to include those plays published with Ewing and Smith suggests that for Risk to sell or even encourage the purchase of Johnson’s Collection would have been detrimental to his and his friends’ catalogue. Finally, I have found only two books which contain the publications of Risk in conjunction with those of Johnson.57 In both of these the Risk publication is collaborative and so does not display either of Risk’s emblems. I suspect that his use of octavo was instead a means of promoting his own productions since Risk had seen Johnson use this format successfully. Because many publishers
55 Phillips, Printing and Bookselling, p. 285. 56 Milhous and Hume, Publication of Plays, p. 110. 57 CUL S721.d.72.5; Hib.8.721.1.
32 33 were adopting either octavo or duodecimo at the time his practice is part of a general trend which had been instituted by Johnson more than a decade earlier.58 One paradox, typical of an emergent industry, is that from 1724 Risk’s shop was identified by the sign of the Shakespeare’s Head, clearly in imitation of Tonson. In an ideal world, as Tonson realised, one’s shop sign should correspond to the device printed in your publications. Yet several of Risk’s publications of 1725-6 proudly display Johnson’s monogram. Although other of his books advertised his new shop sign at this time, Risk was careful that such a statement did not occur in any of those plays bearing the monogram, instead opting for an address: ‘at the Cor-ner of Castle- Lane in Dame’s-street, near the Horse-guard.’59 Risk must have realised the irony, and impracticality, of this juxtaposition between the two signs, since from 1726 the dominant emblem for his dramatic publications became the Shakespeare’s Head, bringing the image of his play series into line with the image of his shop. When we do find plays published later that bear the monogram, such as The Conscious Lovers (1746) or Love’s Last Shift (1750), we witness the degraded value of this emblem since these editions openly advertise their sale at the sign of the Shakespeare’s Head. Although such confusion in his own, appropriated brands of the mid 1720s cannot have been ideal for Risk, as is evidenced by the monogram’s discontinuation, we must recognise the clear significance that Risk felt Johnson’s publications possessed. The only other source of inspiration he so publicly acknowledged, and the only other brand he sought to inhabit, was that of Tonson, London’s premiere literary publisher. Phillips notes that there were several other occasions when Irish publishers were inspired to copy Tonson ornaments.60 Risk’s limitation of these logos to those plays which he published on his own was a tactical error, considering Risk, Ewing and Smith’s quantitative dominance of the Dublin play market. They co-operated enough that they even advertised for each other in the backs of their books. Sir Harry Wildair (1727) contains three separate advertisements: one of plays for Risk, Ewing and Smith; one of books, poems and plays by Risk; and one of books and plays for Smith. Risk had confused his brands by using Tonson’s device as his shop sign, and Johnson’s monogram for his plays, and
58 It is also pertinent to note Phillips’ observation in Printing and Bookselling, pp. 222-23, that from 1700-1720 rule frames dominated Irish title pages, whereas from 1720 it was unusual for a frame to be employed. This a further aspect of design in which Johnson was in the vanguard. 59 In Vanbrugh, The Relapse (1726), for instance. 60 Phillips, Printing and Bookselling, p. 250, 261, 269.
34 then confused things differently by adopting his shop sign for his plays but not for the rest of his publications. He seems to have been unsure as to whether these devices should apply to his whole business, or just to the plays. To this end, since either logo appeared on only some of the plays he stocked, it cannot have been very effective. If he had sacrificed one of these devices as representing his business, and invested with Smith and Ewing in it being used by all three partners as a device for their plays, they could have taken visible possession of the Dublin market and, through collaboration, created a product that carried a similar status, as collection, to Johnson’s in the Netherlands. As it was, Risk’s limited use of the emblems of Johnson and Tonson meant that he only ever borrowed some of their cultural capital without reimagining the brands as his own. His failure to work with Ewing and Smith in promoting their large dramatic output as a canon demarcated by a particular insignia means that whilst they furthered the canonising imperatives of Johnson in Ireland, they could not threaten the London market as later pirates would.
There are two avenues by which Risk may have accessed Johnson’s books. I suspect that both played their part, and one in particular corroborates how various corners of the periphery can influence each other without direct dependence on the core market. We have seen in chapter one how Johnson supplied several British contacts, one of whom was the Edinburgh bookseller George Stewart (trading 1711-1745). On one occasion Johnson sent Stewart his books after receiving an order via a certain Miss Wetstein.61 It seems this lady is Agatha Cornelia Wetstein, the daughter of Rudolph and sister of Jacob Wetstein of the Amsterdam publishing firm. George Risk’s associate John Smith had a partner, William Smith (1698-1741), who moved to Amsterdam in 1725, married Miss Wetstein on the 18th October, and went into business with Rudolph and Jacob from 1728. William Smith was a member of the Amsterdam Guild from 1726. John Smith, and his new partner William Bruce (1702- 1755), used William Smith as a purchaser for them in Amsterdam. In 1726 they issued A Catalogue of Books, Newly Arrived from England, Holland and France.62 They later issued Pearce’s Longinus with a cancel title page to replace the original
61 Ed. La.II.91/B/33 23rd January 1722. 62 A Catalogue of Books, Newly Arrived from England, Holland and France. To be sold by Smiths and Bruce, booksellers on the Blind-Key: (Dublin: Printed by S. Powell, 1726). There is one surviving copy of this in Cashel Cathedral Library, and a facsimile at Trin. Coll.
35 published by Rudolph and Jacob Wetstein and William Smith in Amsterdam.63 It seems likely that Smith and Bruce came into contact with Johnson’s work through this association. Considering the many joint publications of John Smith and Risk, it is probable that Smith would have brought Johnson’s Collection to Risk’s attention. When catalogues of Smith’s library were issued upon his death, first in 1758 and later in 1760, they contained several books that were Johnson publications.64 Considering the scale of Smith’s library this should come as no surprise, but it does at least demonstrate his access to Johnson’s publications. The 1760 edition is incomplete in its only surviving exemplar and so may originally have contained reference to other Johnson publications, including the Collection.65 My second suggestion regarding Risk’s access to Johnson’s books hinges on the aforementioned John Darby. John Smith and Darby issued two joint publications, the first with William Smith and the second with William Bruce: Hutcheson’s Inquiry into the original of our ideas, and his Essay on the Passions.66 Collaboration between Londoners and Dubliners, whilst not common, was undertaken more frequently than between Dubliners and residents of the Netherlands.67 Perhaps Darby had been
63 Dionysii Longini de Sublimitate Commentarius (Dublini: Apud J. Smith & G. Bruce, 1733). 64 A Catalogue of Books: Being the Bound Stock of John Smith, Bookseller, on the Blind-Quay. (Dublin: 1758) contains: p. 27 lot 981 Jean Baptiste Labat, Nouveau Voyages aux Isles de l’Amerique., 2 vols (La Haye: P. Husson, T. Johnson, P. Gosse, J. van Duren, R. Alberts et C. Le Vier, 1724) p. 40 lot 1463 Journal Litteraire, 22 vols (La Haye: T. Johnson, 1715-34) p. 46 lot 1688 Pierre Bayle, Oevres Diverses, 2 vols (La Haye: P. Husson, T. Johnson, J. Swart, H. Scheurleer, J. van Duren, R. Alberts, C. le Vier et F. Boucquet, 1725) p. 64 lot 2372 John Sheffield, The Works of John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Marquis of Normanby, and Duke of Buckingham, 2 vols ([Hague]: Printed for John Barber, Alderman of London [T. Johnson], 1726) A Catalogue of Books. Being the Remainder of the Stock of John Smith, Bookseller, on the Blind-Quay ([Dublin]: [1760?]): p. 16 lot 441 John Toland, Adeisidaemon, sive Titus Livius a Superstitione Vindicatus (Hague- Comitis: apud. T. Johnson, 1709) p. 28 lot 855; also p. 40 lot 1241 Nicholas Rowe, Lucan’s Pharsalia; translated into English verse (London [The Hague]: printed for T. Johnson, 1720) p. 41 lot 1274 John Sheffield, The Works of John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Marquis of Normanby, and Duke of Buckingham, 2 vols ([Hague]: Printed for John Barber, Alderman of London [T. Johnson], 1726). 65 NLI LO 1385(15). 66 Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue; In Two Treatises. (London: Printed by John Darby, for William and John Smith; and sold by William and John Innys, John Osborn, and Sam. Chandler, 1725); Francis Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections. (London: Printed by J. Darby and T. Browne, for John Smith and William Bruce; and sold by J. Osborn and T. Longman, and S. Chandler, 1728). 67 Collaboration between George Faulkner (?1703-1775) and Andrew Millar (?1707-1768) is discussed in Milhous and Hume, Publication of Plays, p. 109. One must be careful to distinguish between proper joint publications, which are less common, and the mere authorisation of a Dublin edition by the London copyright holder, which is more so. In such situations the Irish publisher who volunteered
36 reminiscing to Smith about the Tonson and Curll escapade. Although several of these events occurred before Smith’s association with Risk began in earnest, it cannot be doubted that the gentlemen were already acquainted. Not only did they subsequently take on various publications together, but were all Ulster Presbyterians and alumni of Glasgow University. One cannot prove whether Risk came into contact with Johnson’s work through the Darby or Wetstein route, if indeed by either, but it seems an unlikely coincidence that he should introduce his new monogram in the same year as the Smith’s first collaboration with Darby, and William’s removal to Amsterdam. Although Darby’s strategies were not as successful as they might have been, on account of his confusion of two brands and several marketing strategies, they demonstrate the willingness of an Irish publisher to learn from his continental counterpart. There can be no doubt that Risk was inspired by Johnson, although he projected his canon in a less sustained manner. Although he does not appear to have had much direct effect on the London market, the practices of Risk, in conjunction with Ewing and Smith, did lay the groundwork for the flood of plays printed in Ireland in the second half of the eighteenth century, most notably by George Faulkner. Later publishers’ more sustained promotion of their collections, and ideas of what a canon should contain, led to increased appropriation and defensiveness on the part of the London copyright holders as they attempted to cling to the initiative in the presentation of drama. This became more important as the legality and tenability of their copyrights, on which their authority was historically based, began to be attacked from all sides. When perpetual copyright was finally ended with the case of Donaldson v Beckett (1774) (Alexander Donaldson, 1727-1794; Thomas Becket, trading 1760-1776), the scramble to adopt new presentational forms as a means of regaining market dominance was the culmination of trends and influences that had been gathering momentum across the century.
Johnson’s publications were sufficiently widespread that various copies crossed the channel and influenced the practices of Darby, Curll, Tonson and Risk, and later Lowndes and the Dodsleys. They were not however so prevalent that these publishers felt public knowledge of them would compromise their own appropriation of Johnson’s product form and marketing strategies. Other publishers recognised the payment for official copy not only hoped to get his edition out sooner than anyone else but could accrue considerable cultural capital through his association with the London edition.
37 power of Johnson’s title page design and appropriated it in order to improve their own publications, and retrench the desirability of their product before the public became aware of the more modern alternatives that were being produced at the margins of the English publishing world. It is significant that Johnson’s location at the periphery of the English letters went hand in hand with his centrality in the Republic of Letters. It is such openness to European ideas, as well as the Collection he instituted, that led fellow Scotsmen such as Donaldson to challenge the Stationer’s Company monopoly in the 1770s. Johnson was forced by his location to cultivate a new kind of brand, one that relied not on copyright ownership but on the authority of the publisher effectively transferred into an authoritative publication, a canon of English drama. His product had a significance that passed beyond his control. Through its reception by and influence on the above publishers, and many others not mentioned here, it helped shape the appearance and success of English drama as literature for decades to come.
38 Appendix 1: Abbreviations Abbreviation Library CUL Cambridge University Library Ed. Edinburgh University Library Fol. Folger Shakespeare Library NLI National Library of Ireland Trin. Coll. Trinity College Dublin
39 Appendix 2: Risk Books Bearing Copied Emblems
Device Date Title Author TJ 1725; 1740 The Tender Husband Steele 1725; 1737 The Christian Hero Steele 1725; 1743 The Funeral Steele 1725; 1752 The Lying Lover Steele 1725 She Wou’d and She Wou’d Not Cibber 1725; 1743 The Provok’d Wife Vanbrugh 1725 The Relapse Vanbrugh 1725 The Constant Couple Farquhar 1725 The Wonder Centlivre 1725 The Artful Husband Taverner 1725 The Cobler of Preston [sic] Johnson 1725 The Man of Mode Etherege 1725 The Drummer Addison [Harrison] 1725 Abra-Mule Trapp 1725 The Rehearsal Buckingham (Villiers) 1726 Love for Money Durfey [d’Urfey] 1726 The Island Princess Motteux 1726 The Liffy Ogle 1726 The Northern Lass Brome Shakespeare’s Head 1726 Poems Upon Several Occasions Lansdowne (Granville) 1726 Mithridates Lee 1726 Ximena Cibber 1726 The Royal Convert Rowe 1726 Ulysses Rowe 1726 The Ambitious Step-Mother Rowe 1727 Lady Jane Gray Rowe 1728 The Stage-Coach Farquhar 1729 Sophonisba Lee 1730 The Unhappy Favourite Banks 1731 Love Make’s a Man Cibber 1734 The Drummer Addison [Harrison] 1741; 1757 The Rehearsal Buckingham (Villiers) 1746 The Fair Penitent Rowe TJ 1746; 1757 The Conscious Lovers Steele 1750 Love’s Last Shift Cibber 1752 Love Makes a Man Cibber
40