Publications of the patentees

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 the patentees

  • England and Wales. Sovereign (1694-1702 : William III).. William the Third, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the faith, &c. To all and singular archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, deans, ... and to all other our officers, ministers and subjects whatsoever they be, as well within liberties as without, to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Whereas it hath been humbly represented unto us by the petition of William Ebourne, John Ebourne, William Marshall, Thomas Huggins, and Marmaduke Roberts. and above one hundred others sufferers by fire, in the parish of Saint Mary Magdalen Bermondsey, in the county of Surry: ... That on the fourteenth day of June last, there happened near the river of Thames, in the said parish ... a most dreadful and sudden fire, which in the space of a few hours consumed and burnt down to the ground the dwelling-houses of the said poor petitioners, ... Know ye therefore, that of our royal favour ... do give and grant ... full power, license, and authority, to ask, gather, rec. London: printed by Benj. Motte, for the patentees, 1700. ESTC No. R218535. Grub Street ID 93181.