Publications of the Theatre

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 by the Theatre

  • Penrose, Francis. An essay on magnetism: or an endeavour to explain the various properties and effects of the load-stone: together with the causes of the same. By Francis Penrose, Surgeon, at Bicester, Oxfordshire. Oxford: printed at the Theatre for Sackville Parker, Bookseller at Oxford, and W. Owen, at Homer's Head, Temple-Bar, London, MDCCLIII. [1753]. ESTC No. T105403. Grub Street ID 158715.

Printed for the Theatre

  • A letter from the most renown'd pastors and professors of the Church and University of Geneva to the University of Oxford; together with the answer ... Read and approved in a full convocation, Febr. 5th. 1706/7. Translated into English from the Latine originals. ... [Oxford: Printed at the Theatre in Oxford, anno Dom., 1707]. ESTC No. N34717. Grub Street ID 23018.