5. The Printers and Publishers
Robert Jennings
Robert Jennings seems to have been working in
London from about 1810, first at Poultry and later in Cheapside. One of the
first references to him is found on the title page of a work by Virgil, Virgilii Maronis Bucolica. This was
Printed by T. Bensley, Bolt Court and published by Robert Jennings, No. 2,
Poultry, and Sold by J. MacKinlay, Strand.[1]
Sporadic works followed such as poems of J B Drayton (1815), A Code of Signals for … Merchant’s Ships
(1816) or an edition of Alexander Pope’s Essay
on Man (1819). Jennings seems to have been more successful in the next decade
and his range becomes more extensive and more demanding. In 1826 Jennings
published Robert Batty’s Scenery of the
Rhine, Belgium and Holland[2].
Another guide was Augustus Pugin’s Paris
and its Environs (1829-31). He had already published two books on travel,
Thomas Cromwell’s History of … Colchester
(1825) and even an edition of Samuel Johnson’s A diary of a journey into North Wales (1816, no plates).
Fig. 18. The Borghese
Palace from Thomas Roscoe’s The Tourist
in Switzerland and Italy (1830) pub. Jennings and Chaplin.
At about the same time he was busy publishing
Moore, he produced Thomas Roscoe’s The
Tourist in Switzerland and Italy (1830, Fig. 18). This would appear
to be the first of a series of illustrated guide books or so-called Landscape
Annuals (as Jennings Landscape Annual
from 1835) appearing one each year. Italy was continued in each of the
following 3 years, 1834 saw a work on France, Spain appeared in 3 separate
volumes with different attention paid to Granada, Andalusia and the journey to
Morocco (1836-1838) and finally Portugal (1839). The 1831 Annual was published
jointly by Robert Jennings and William Chaplin and this is also reflected in
some of the imprints on Moore’s illustrations. It is apparent that with the
investment in steel plates he now specialised in illustrated works to take full
advantage of this technology.
Another work worth mentioning here is The Keepsake. This was an illustrated
anthology of poetry and prose sold annually from 1828 to 1857 during the
Christmas season as gifts, the largest customer group being middle-class women.
Bound in sparkling crimson watered silk with gilt-edged pages, The Keepsake featured elegant,
steel-plate engravings of fashionable women, travel scenes, and romantic story
pictures.[3] Jennings,
together with Hurst, Chance & Co. were the publishers of the first 4 issues
but Jennings and Chaplin in 1831.
Robert Jennings was working on his own when he
began publishing Moore’s History and
only his imprint is found on the first six numbers up to February 1830. By the
June issue that year he had entered into partnership with W Chaplin and their
combined imprint, in a number of variations, is found on all covers and plate
imprints up to 1833. However, the partnership was apparently dissolved at the
end of that year.[4] The
partnership is certainly absent on any publications from 1834 to 1836, i.e.,
the intervening years between issue No. 47 and final publication in book form.
This may explain why the title page(s) bear the original date of 1829 when the
partnership was still active.
Although Jennings worked with the printer J Moyes
(e.g., on North Wales), he used the
services of Richard Taylor of Red Lion Court in London to print Moore’s History. The only reference to Richard
Taylor in Todd[5] is a
passing reference to the Taylor family. Hence, Richard Taylor is given as a
partner to John Taylor working c.1803-04 in Fleet St. Previous to this he may
have been working with Robert Wilkes. There are then a number of addresses for
Richard in the same London area.
Rather amusingly his premises in 1805 were given
as “at the back of my Dwelling House”. As sole proprietor he seems to have been
in Shoe Lane (1823-2) and at Red Lion Court (1827-37). He died in 1858. His
name and address are found on p.574 of Vol. I., i.e., the end of the first
volume. This page is followed by a remark to the reader signed by T Moore in
which he advises “Title-pages, an Index,
Appendix, &c. Will be given at the conclusion of the Work. The final
page of letterpress to Vol. II, however, has no printer’s imprint but the
four-page Index which follows has Exeter:
Printed by W C Featherstone. This was a well-known and well-respected local
publisher at the time. Maxted has a list of over 50 works printed by William
Charleton Featherstone between 1825 and 1858 (interestingly Moore’s work is not
listed).[6]
It would appear at first glance that Taylor printed all the text except the
index.
The
Featherstone company of
lithographers and printers would produce two maps of Exeter in the 1850s.[7]
William Charleton Featherstone
was born circa 1794-95 in Plymouth and died 3rd February 1858 in Exeter. He
married Jane and they had one son, Samuel, but it was Jane who registered
William’s death and it was probably she who announced the sale of her late
husband’s business to John Pollard in the Exeter Flying Post
of 18th March of the same year. William worked from a large number of addresses
and he is listed at 67 Fore Street in Pigot’s 1822 directory and under the Weekly Times Office
1828. As early as 1825 he printed a broadsheet on the proposed railway to
Exeter (printer to J Godfrey). Between September 1832 and April 1833 eighteen
issues of The Western Spy
were published: the first two under Featherstone, the others by
W C Pollard. He also
published the Western Times
for a while but severed connection with the paper to start up Featherstone’s Exeter Times
in 1836 which was not successful and ran for only four months.
Henry Fisher
Henry Fisher (fl.1816-37d) and his son
were well-known publishers at the Caxton Press in St. Martin-le-Grand, London,
from the mid-1820s to nearly 1850. According to Todd[8],
Henry Fisher had started the Caxton Press Office in Liverpool but moved to
London after it was destroyed by fire in 1821. He opened premises at Owen’s Row
in Clerkenwell and 38 Newgate St (an address still being used in 1848).
However, he had already maintained a warehouse at 87 Bartholomew Close.
This address is given in an insurance document
from 1814.[9]
Presumably he was distributing his Liverpool-printed religious material from
there. He received £36 000 insurance compensation[10]
after the fire and this may have given him the incentive to review his
situation. In 1825 Robert Fisher graduated from Cambridge University and joined
the company. From 1827 the business was running as the Caxton Press and the
name P Jackson occurs. From 1833-40 we find the imprint Fisher, Son &
Jackson and from this time Fisher & Jackson. In 1842 the company completed Fisher’s County Atlas of England and Wales, an atlas
originally started by Gibson; this included a map of Devonshire based on
earlier maps by J & C Walker.[11]
The Walkers would provide the Devon map for Henry Fisher’s Devonshire Illustrated.
From 1829 to 1832 Fisher produced the parts
series as Devonshire and Cornwall
Illustrated. This was published in London by H Fisher, Son & Co., Jones
& Co. from their Newgate St. address, as well as by Jones & Co.,
Finsbury Square, and distributed in Plymouth by J Gibson. Once completed Devonshire and Cornwall Illustrated was
made available to the general public and was sold with a title page dated 1832,
handsomely bound and gilt, price £2 2s. Subscribers would have had their parts
bound, and these will have a title page dated 1829. This work was also sold as Fisher’s Picturesque Illustrations of Great Britain and Ireland. Third
Series, comprising Views in the Counties of Devon and Cornwall by Fisher,
Son and Co. and J Gibson in London as a Parts issue in 1834[12].
The inclusion of title pages and index in Part 9 of this series clearly
indicates a 9-part set. Given a 36-part set for the first issue this is the
equivalent of four issues per month and ties in neatly with the new price – 4s.
- and the dating of 1834 is based on an advert for another work on the back
cover of both.
The Fishers were well versed in the production of
serial publications. Numerous adverts for works they had recently published or
were in the process of publishing make reference to parts issues. Issue 5 of Devonshire & Cornwall Illustrated referred to one of the works
being written by J Britton, Picturesque
Antiquities of the English Cities, which was to be completed in six numbers each to contain ten engravings. The
back cover of this issue (5) also has an advert for Lancashire Illustrated (published in parts, but completed in 1831),
a companion publication to Devon &
Cornwall Illustrated, with sixty-five
engravings in 16 numbers. Another “companion” issue seems to have been Ireland Illustrated (also published in
parts, and completed in 1831), which was also heavily advertised on the covers
of Devon and Cornwall Illustrated (Fig. 19).
Both of these companion works have the identical
layout to Devonshire and Cornwall and are each mentioned at least a
dozen times on back covers: this inclusion might be a single line reference (2
issues); a small paragraph (8 issues) where Devon
and Cornwall is omitted in the list three times; or the complete back cover
(Ireland issues 7 and 26, Lancashire issues 5 and 9 which has a half page
announcing engravings still in the
engraver’s hands, 18, 23, 24). In issue 22 (Fisher’s Illustrations 48) the works on Ireland and Devon and
Cornwall receive a larger mention and this is followed by the suggestion to buy
A Lancashire New Year’s Gift as This day is published ... Lancashire Illustrated.
A word of caution is perhaps relevant here. Only
two sets of the parts issue are to hand and while the covers are, for the most
part identical (see also Chapter 8 Publication History),
covers which are identical on the front do not always bear the same advertising
on the reverse.
Fig. 19. Ireland Illustrated and Lancashire
Illustrated advertised in Fisher No. 3.
All three of these works, Ireland, Lancashire and
Devon with Cornwall, were said to be Forming
Part of the General Series of Fisher’s Grand National Improvements, and Jones’
Great Britain Illustrated. When the Devon-Cornwall parts series was
reissued in 1834 the back cover was advertising Westmoreland, Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland, Illustrated.
Another serial issue, this was to appear in Numbers
with four engravings at 1s, or in Parts
with eight engravings at 2s. Other English counties followed in due course.
The Fisher company was also very quick to present advertising content about their works, hence in Issue 11 we already find testimonials for Devon & Cornwall Illustrated: The Literary Gazette wrote that The views in this Part (Part I) are seventeen in number, and are beautifully executed; the Plymouth Chronicle thought it was very good value a price (4s) infinitely below its value; and Alfred of Exeter is quoted: As it advances, it improves in public estimation: Alfred being The West of England Journal, And General Advertiser.
Just as Jennings was happy to publish a
“drawing-room” book, probably a coffee table book by today’s criteria, so too
Henry Fisher. Although he entered this market two years later than Jennings, on
the cover of No. 29 (of Devon &
Cornwall Illustrated) we find an advert for Fisher’s Drawing-room Scrap Book. At the end of a full half page
advertising the work and its layout we are told: Unlike the other Annuals, the Drawing-Room Scrap Book will not
anticipate its proper season; and on that ground alone is entitled to attention
as a genuine and desirable Novelty for A Christmas present, or A New Year’s
Gift.
Generally speaking, Fisher appears to have had
more interest (than Jennings) in generating sales for his works by advertising
or indeed, the sale of surplus stock. All issues except the first
(with Address) lists various publications on the back, e.g., Lancashire Illustrated or Ireland Illustrated. The Edinburgh Review of 1832 includes an
advert for four Fisher works including Devon
& Cornwall Illustrated – “the latter being Parts I to VIII containing
129 views (Nine Parts will complete the series)” – which might refer to the “quarterly”
edition with four Numbers per issue which appeared in 1834. However, the
advertisement goes on to announce that:
The ORIGINAL DRAWINGS (about 400) executed for the
above works, are now offered for sale, together or singly. Each series has been
carefully mounted and bound up in a handsome volume, and would form most
interesting and elegant Drawing-room Scrap Books. Noblemen and Gentlemen
disposed to purchase any entire series will be dealt with on very liberal
terms.[13]
In addition, the Parts issue regularly had advertising
inserts. As early as Part 4 an insert was advertising Jones’
publications, many identical to adverts on the cover of Part 2. Two extra
inserts are seen in Part 5: an advertising slip for the January number of National Portrait Gallery No. IX was placed before the first view; and a two-page Address and
description of The History and
Antiquities of The Cathedral of Exeter. Other works advertised this way
were Views in the East … India (Sept. 1830), or a new print Ceremony
of Opening the New London Bridge (Oct. 1831).
In addition, we know that Fisher had advertised Devon & Cornwall Illustrated fairly extensively in 1829. There
were high profile advertisements placed in the Western Times, Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, Trewman’s Exeter
Flying Post and Flindell’s Western
Luminary throughout September 1829 as well as in Alfred (i.e. The West of England Journal, And General Advertiser) quoted above.
Jennings, on the other hand, used advertising sparingly
– the covers to both quarto and octavo Numbers all reprinted the Address (Fig. 20) for the first
three years; the covers were only changed twice. New covers were
introduced after Part 21: the Address and Mode is replaced by three lines
including information about previous issues (Numbers 1 to 21 already
published) and offering Parts, i.e. three issues together, in
both octavo and quarto. The main text is a near full-page advert for Moule´s English
Counties. For Part 30 the reverse now mentions Numbers 1 to 29 already
published, Vol I is available complete (price 2l.) and a List of
Plates Already Published (Plates 1-58 in Appendix I) is included.
A brief review of the local newspapers for August
and September 1829 reveals only two small adverts in the Western Times on 22nd and 29th August.[14]
Fig. 20. Moore No. 1
with Address to the reader (octavo
left) and No. 22 advertising Moule´s English Counties Delineated (quarto
right).
Use the links here to go directly to desired pages:
[1] The book is illustrated at Internet Archives from copy at the Bodleian Library.
[3] Verbatim. See romantic-circles.org/editions/lel/ksintro for a very good review of this popular periodical.
[6] See Maxted’s list (2014) at bookhistory.blogspot.com/2014/10/devon-imprints-exeter-featherstone.
[9] James M‘Kenzie-Hall (1).
[11] Batten & Bennett 2000/2010, entry 120
[12] The author has Parts 1 and 9.
[13] James M‘Kenzie-Hall (1) see p.190.
Comments
Post a Comment