John Wright (fl. 1729–1749)

John Wright, "Pope's printer," 1729–1749, on St. Peter's Hill, near Doctors' Commons.

It seems unlikely that Pope supervised John Wright, who became his printer from 1728 onwards, any less intently than he did Bowyer and Watts. Wright's seems to have been a small shop, possibly worked by him and his son, and most of his printing was for Pope or Pope's friends, though he would have been engaged in small-scale jobbing work as well.¹¹ He must have been very dependent on Pope's goodwill, which may not have been easy to maintain. John Dennis provides an entertaining, if hostile, glimpse of the printing of the Dunciad Variorum:

Does not half the Town know, that honest J.W. was the only Dunce that was persecuted and plagu'd by this Impression? that Twenty times the Rhapsodist alter'd every thing that he gave the Printer? and that Twenty times, W. in Rage and in Fury, threaten'd to turn the Rhapsody back upon the Rhapsodist's Hands?¹² 

The incessant revision, particularly of works as complicated as the Variorum, where text and two varieties of notes had to be juggled on the same page, must have strained the relationship, though a lot would depend on the system of payment. Pope seems to have rewritten in proof a great deal, and Wright presumably charged extra for this work.

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¹¹ There are no records from Wright's shop, so the inferences about his business are speculative. He did not use press-figures, which suggests he was using only one press, or at least did not need a system of identification for his press-men. His ornaments do not lead to identification of a large number of publications, but, of course, he may not always have used them (see James McLaverty, Pope's Printer, John Wright. Oxford Bibliographical Society Occasional Publication 11 (Oxford: Bibliographical Society, 1977)). He did small printing jobs for Christ's Hospital, and his son succeeded him (Minutes of the Committee of Almoners, Guildhall Library, MS 12,811/9 and 12).

¹² 'Remarks upon the Dunciad', The Critical Works of John Dennis, ed. Edward Niles Hooker, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939–1943), 2. 356. The 1728 Dunciad was printed by James Bettenham; I do not know why.

—James McLaverty, Pope, Print, and Meaning (Oxford, England; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 6–7