Publications of Adam Islip

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.

Printers (owners of the type and printing presses, and possibly owners of the copyright) may be identified by the words printed by, but printed by does not universally designate a person who is a printer by trade. Booksellers may be identified by the words sold by. Booksellers may also be identified by the words printed for, but nothing should be concluded in this regard without further evidence, especially since "printed for" could signify that the named person was a distributor (or what we might call a wholesaler) rather than a copyright holder. Copyright owners may also be identified by the words printed for. Trade publishers, who distributed books and pamphlets but did not own the copyright or employ a printer—and were not printers themselves—might be identified by the words printed and sold by. Furthermore, works from this period often display false imprints, whether to evade copyright restrictions, to conceal the name of the copyright holders, or to dupe unwitting customers. Ultimately, one must proceed with caution in using the following lists: designations in the imprints may not reliably reflect the actual trades or roles of the people named, and the formulas used in imprints do not consistently mean the same thing.

David Foxon discussed the "meaning of the imprint" in his Lyell Lecture delivered at Oxford in March 1976, with particular attention to "publishers" in the eighteenth-century context:

The fullest form of an imprint is one which names three people, or groups of people:
     London: printed by X (the printer), for Y (the bookseller who owned the copyright), and sold by Z.
In the eighteenth century the printer's name is rarely given, at least in works printed in London, and the form is more commonly:
     London: printed for Y, and sold by Z.
Very often in this period, and particularly for pamphlets, it is further abbreviated to:
     London: printed and sold by Z.
It is this last form which is my present concern. Z is usually what the eighteenth century called 'a publisher', or one who distributes books and pamphlets without having any other responsibility—he does not own the copyright or employ a printer, or even know the author.

He cautions, "The only way to avoid being misled is to regard any imprint which says a book is printed for a publisher as meaning it is sold by him" (5).

D. F. McKenzie coined the term "trade publisher" for these publishers in his Sandars Lectures, also in 1976, on the grounds that their principal role was to publish on behalf of other members of the book trade (Treadwell 100).

Michael Treadwell cautions that "In this period the imprint 'London: Printed and sold by A.B.' normally means 'Printed at London, and sold by A.B.' and must not be taken to mean that A.B. is a printer in the absence of other evidence." Further, "The imprint 'published by' occurs only rarely in Wing and is almost always associated with the name of a trade publisher" (104). While there are exceptions to the rule, it is "certain," he explains, "that anyone who made a speciality of distributing works for others will show a far higher proportion than normal of imprints in one of the 'sold by' forms" (116), which appear in the imprint as "sold by," "printed and sold by," or "published by" (104). Treadwell gives Walter Kettilby as an example of "a fairly typical copyright-owning bookseller" (106)—his role is almost always designated by the phrase "printed for" on imprints.

A final caution: publisher is a word that should be used with some deliberation. Samuel Johnson defines it simply as "One who puts out a book into the world," but "published by" rarely appears on the imprint until later in the eighteenth century, and then primarily associated with newspapers and pamphlets. Treadwell observes that John Dunton names only five publishers among the 200 binders and booksellers in his autobiographical Life and Errors (1705) wherein he undertakes "to draw the Character of the most Eminent [Stationers] in the Three Kingdoms" (100). Treadwell also remarks, however, that "in law, anyone who offered a work for sale 'published' it. In this sense every work had one or more 'publishers', and every bookseller, mercury, and hawker was a 'publisher'" (114).

See:

  • Terry Belanger, "From Bookseller to Publisher: Changes in the London Book Trade, 1750–1850," in Book Selling and Book Buying. Aspects of the Nineteenth-Century British and North American Book Trade, ed. Richard G. Landon (Chicago: American Library Association, 1978).
  • Bricker, Andrew Benjamin. "Who was 'A. Moore'? The Attribution of Eighteenth-Century Publications with False and Misleading Imprints," in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 110.2 (2016).
  • John Dunton, The Life and Errors of John Dunton (London: Printed for S. Malthus, 1705).
  • John Feather, "The Commerce of Letters: The Study of the Eighteenth-Century Book Trade," Eighteenth-Century Studies 17 (1984).
  • David Foxon, Pope and the Early Eighteenth-Century Book Trade, ed. James McLaverty (Oxford University Press, 1991).
  • Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language, (printed for J. and P. Knapton; T. and T. Longman; C. Hitch and L. Hawes; A. Millar; and R. and J. Dodsley, 1755).
  • D.F. McKenzie, The London Book Trade in the Later Seventeenth Century (Sandars lectures in bibliography, 1977).
  • Michael Treadwell, "London Trade Publishers 1675–1750," The Library sixth series, vol. 4, no. 2 (1982).

Printed by Adam Islip

  • Saint German, Christopher. The dialogue in English, betweene a Doctor of Diuinitie, and a student in the lawes of England: newly corrected and imprinted, with new additions. At London: Printed by [Adam Islip for] Thomas Wight, and Bonham Norton, 1598. ESTC No. S116373. Grub Street ID 136060.
  • Manwood, John. A treatise and discourse of the lawes of the forrest: wherin is declared not onely those lawes, as they are now in force, but also the originall and beginning of forrestes: and what a forrest is in his owne proper nature, and wherein the same doth differ from a chase, a park, or a warren, with all such thinges as are incident or belonging thereunto, with their seuerall proper tearmes of art: as more at large doth appeare in the table in the beginning of this booke. Also a treatise of the purallee, declaring what purallee is, how the same first began, what a purallee man may doe, how he may hunt and vse his owne purallee, how far he may pursue and follow after his chase, together with the lymits and boundes, aswell of the Forrest, as the Puralley. Collected and gathered together, aswell out of the common lawes and statutes of this land, as also out of sundry learned auncient aucthors, and out of the assises and iters of Pickring and Lancaster, by Iohn Manwood. At London: Printed by [Adam Islip? for] Thomas Wight and Bonham Norton, 1598. ESTC No. S111993. Grub Street ID 131756.
  • Peele, George. The loue of King Dauid and fair Bethsabe. With the tragedie of Absalon. As it hath ben diuers times plaied on the stage. Written by George Peele. London: printed by Adam Islip, 1599. ESTC No. S110364. Grub Street ID 130426.
  • Plowden, Edmund. Les commentaries, ou reportes de Edmund Plowden vn apprentice de le common ley, de diuers cases esteant matters en ley, & de les arguments sur yceux, en les temps des raigns le roy Ed. le size, le roign Mary, le roy & roign Ph. & Mary, & le roigne Elizabeth. Ouesque vn table perfect des choses notables contenus en ycel, compose per William Fletewood recorder de Londres. Auxi vous aues en cest impression plusors bone notes en le margent per tout le lieur, en queux les cases sont referre al Abridgment de Brooke, en les lieurs del termes, & as auters lieurs del common ley. Londini: [Printed by Adam Islip] in ædibus Thomæ Wight, & Bonhami Norton, 1599. ESTC No. S115960. Grub Street ID 135652.
  • Mascall, Leonard. A booke of fishing with hooke and line, and of all other instruments thereununto [sic] belonging. Another of sundrie engines and traps, to take polcats, buzzards, rats, mice, and all other kinds of vermine and beasts whatsoeuer, most profitable for all vvarriners, and such as delight inthis kind of sport and pastime. Made by L.M. London: printed by [A. Islip? for] Iohn Wolfe, and are to bee sold by Edward VVhite, dwelling at the little north dore of Paules at the signe of the Gun, 1600. ESTC No. S94142. Grub Street ID 152480.
  • Keilway, Robert. Relationes quorundam casuum selectorum ex libris Roberti Keilvvey ar': qui temporibus f?icissimæ memoriæ Regis Henrici Septimi, & inclitissimi Regis Henrici Octaui, emerserunt, & in prioribus impressionibus relationum de terminis illorum regum, non exprimuntur: in lucem editæ, anno xliiij. illustrissimi regni serenissimæ Reginæ nostræ Elizabeth. Londini: [Printed by Adam Islip?] in ædibus Thomæ Wight, An. Do. 1602. ESTC No. S112842. Grub Street ID 132587.
  • Downame, George. Lectures on the XV. Psalme: read in the cathedrall church of S. Paule, in London. Wherein besides many other very profitable and necessarie matters, the question of vsurie is plainely and fully decided. By George Dovvname, Doctor of Diuinitie. Whereunto are annexed two other treatises of the same authour, the one of fasting, the other of prayer. London: Printed by Adam Islip for Cuthbert Burbie, and are to be sold in Paules Church-yard at the signe of the Swan, 1604. ESTC No. S110203. Grub Street ID 130306.
  • The dovvnefall of poperie: proposed by way of a new challenge to all English Iesuits and Iesuited or Italianized papists: daring them all iointly, and euery one of them seuerally, to make answere thereunto if they can, or haue any truth on their side; knowing for a truth that otherwise all the world will crie with open mouths, fie vpon them, and their patched hotch-potch religion. London: Printed by A[dam] Islip for Arthur Iohnson: and are to be sold at the signe of the White Horse, ouer against the great North doore of Paules, 1604. ESTC No. S113800. Grub Street ID 133526.
  • Phayer, Thomas. A booke of presidents, with additions of diuers necessarie instruments, meet for all such as desire to learne the manner and forme how to make euidences and instruments, &c. As in the table of this booke more plainly appeareth. Imprinted at London: [By A. Islip] for the Companie of Stationers, 1611. ESTC No. S113530. Grub Street ID 133262.
  • Mayerne, Louis Turquet de. The generall historie of Spaine, containing all the memorable things that haue past in the realmes of Castille, Leon, Nauarre, Arragon, Portugall, Granado, &c. and by what meanes they were vnited, and so continue vnder Philip the third, King of Spaine, now raigning; written in French by Levvis de Mayerne Turquet, vnto the yeare 1583: translated into English, and continued vnto these times by Edvvard Grimeston, Esquire. London: Printed by A. Islip, and G. Eld, anno Dom. 1612. ESTC No. S114485. Grub Street ID 134195.
  • Smith, John. Essex doue, presenting the vvorld vvith a fevv of her oliue branches: or, A taste of the workes of that reuerend, faithfull, iudicious, learned, and holy minister of the Word, Mr. Iohn Smith, late preacher of the Word at Clauering in Essex. Deliuered in three seuerall treatises, viz. 1 His grounds of religion. 2 An exposition on the Lords Prayer. 3 A treatise of repentance. London: Printed by A[dam] I[slip and George Purslowe] for George Edwardes, and are to be sold at his house in the Old Baily, in Greene Arbor, at the signe of the Angell, 1629. ESTC No. S117569. Grub Street ID 137238.
  • Bodin, Jean. Of the lawes and cvstomes of a common-wealth. Learnedly discovrsing of the power of soveraignety and majestracy, and of the orders and degrees of citizens, with the priviledges of corporations and colledges: and other things pertinent to estates and societies. Writtn by I. Bodin a famous lawyer, and a man of great experience in matters of state. Out of the French and Latin copies, done into English, by Richard Knolles, author of the Turkish history. London: printed by A. I[slip]. and are to bee sold [by G. Bishop] at the signe of the Bell in Saint Pauls Church-yard, [1635]. ESTC No. S91124. Grub Street ID 150317.