Publications of all purposes

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 the seller and printer roles in combination, or an absence of the printer's name following "London: printed:" or "London: printed,":

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

On this last point, trade publishers may seem to have "printed" or "published" the work, though they did not own the copyright. The lists below reflect only the information on the imprint, except where ESTC provides extra information.

See also "The Meaning of the Imprint."

Printed for all purposes

  • That the bringing on boards above, and paying the plank with stuff under a mill'd-lead-sheathing, is damageable, more charge, and altogether unnecessary; plainly prov'd from experience as well as reason. London]: This paper, with some others, and the book also about the mill'd lead for all purposes, may be had at Mr. Nelme's, a bookseller over against the Royal Exchange, and at Mr. Basset's by Temple-bar, [1697. ESTC No. R218189. Grub Street ID 92888.