Publications of a well-wisher

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 a well-wisher

  • Culpeper, Nicholas. PharmacopÅ“ia Londinensis: or The London dispensatory. Further adorned by the studies and collections of the Fellows, now living of the said colledg. Wherein you may finde. 1. The virtues, qualitites, and properties of every simple. 2. The virtues and use of the compounds. 3. Cautions in giving all medicines that are dangerous. 4. All the medicines that were in the Old Latin dispensatory, and are left out in the New Latin one, are printed in this fourth impression in English, with their virtues. 5. A key to Galen's Method of physick, containing thirty three chapters 6. In this impression the Latin name of every one of the compounds is printed, and in what page of the new folio Latin book they are to be found. 7. According to the longing desire of the author, for the good of the Common-wealth, as in fol. 71. ... this book is printed in this character to the en that its prise may not exceed the poores purse. By Nich. Culpeper Gent. student in physick and astrology, living in Spittlefields. London: printed by a well-wisher to the Common-wealth of England, 1654. ESTC No. R32396. Grub Street ID 115109.