Publications of ye benefit

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 ye benefit

  • Petty, William. A geographicall description of ye kingdom of Ireland. Collected from ye actual survey made by Sr. William Petty-Corrected & amended, by the advice, & assistance, of severall able artists, late inhabitants of that kingdom-Containing one generall mapp, of ye whole kingdom, with four provincial mapps, & 32. county mapps. divided into baronies, where in are discribed ye cheife cities, townes, rivers, harbors, and head-lands, &ca. To which is added a mapp of Great Brittaine and Ireland, together with an index of the whole. Being very usefull for all gentlemen, and military officers, as well for sea, as land service. London]: engraven & published for ye benefit of ye publique, by Fra: Lamb. and are to be sold at his house in Newgate streete, next door but one to ye White Swan, toward ye gate. By Rob: Morden at ye Atlas in Cornhill. And by Will: Berry, at the Globe at Charing Cross London, [1689. ESTC No. R21018. Grub Street ID 86384.