Printer's Error

by Rebecca Romney

  128exist only because of this collection: Blayney, First Folio, 1.

  128much larger, taller folio: Amanda Mabillard, Shakespeare in Print, Shakespeare Online, http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/shakespeare inprint.html.

  128you can still see the delicate stab-holes: Roger Chartier and Peter Stallybrass, “What Is a Book?” in Cambridge Companion to Textual Scholarship, ed. Neil Fraistat and Julia Flanders (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 196.

  129“frauds and stealths of injurious imposters”: Heminges and Condell, “To the Great Variety of Readers,” A3r.

  129running the everyday operations: Blayney, First Folio, 2, 4.

  129“literary arbiter of taste”: Sonia Massai, “Edward Blount, the Herberts, and the First Folio,” in Shakespeare’s Stationers, ed. Marta Straznicky (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 138.

  130“no certainty of recovering their considerable investment”: Kastan, Shakespeare and the Book, 78.

  130admitted into the folio club: Ibid., 51.

  130“but for all time”: Ben Jonson, “To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr. William Shakespeare: And What He Hath Left Us,” in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, A4v.

  131attempted to raise dramatic arts: See Stephen Orgel, “Shakespeare and the Kinds of Drama,” Critical Inquiry 6, no. 1 (1979): 107–23; and Andrew Murphy, Shakespeare in Print: A History and Chronology of Shakespeare Publishing (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 35.

  131“What others call a play you call a work”: Anonymous, quoted in Wits Recreations (London: R.H. for Humphrey Blunden, 1640), G3v. The response of a friend of Jonson’s is also recorded: “Ben’s plays are works, when others’ works are plays.” That last guy definitely lost the rap battle.

  131five shillings off the sticker price: Blayney, First Folio, 28–32.

  13196,000 loaves of bread: Murphy, Shakespeare in Print, 51 and 422, referencing approximations suggested by Anthony West in “Sales and Prices of Shakespeare First Folios: A History, 1623 to the Present,” Part One, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 92, no. 4 (1998): 465–528.

  131first recorded sale: Blayney, First Folio, 25.

  132“a respectable performance”: Ibid., 32.

  132bring upon themselves a swashbuckler’s fate: “We’re avoiding the curse,” said the man in charge of the renovations. “Bard’s ‘Cursed’ Tomb Is Revamped,” BBC News, May 28, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cov entry_warwickshire/7422986.stm.

  132skull was likely stolen from its grave: Sarah Kaplan, “Shakespeare’s Skull Probably Isn’t in His Grave,” Washington Post, March 25, 2016, https://www .washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/25/shakespeares-skull -probably-isnt-in-his-grave/.

  133“set the table on a rore”: William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 5, scene 1, lines 171 and 175–77. Quoted in Norton Shakespeare, 1744.

  133“the creator of Shakespeare”: Kastan, Shakespeare and the Book, 78.

  134“a blot in his papers”: Heminges and Condell, “To the great Variety of Readers,” in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, A3r.

  134“pusles the brain . . . others that we know not of”: Q1, 1603, “bad” Hamlet, E1r.

  Chapter 6: Benjamin Franklin Makes It Rain

  135“new suit” . . .“five pounds sterling”: Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, Ralph L. Ketcham, Helen C. Boatfield, and Helene H. Fineman, with foreword by Edmund S. Morgan (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 81.

  135that kind of a wife: Hugh Amory, “Reinventing the Colonial Book,” in A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, ed. Hugh Amory and David D. Hall (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 51.

  136“no such sum” . . .“mortgage” . . .“not approve”: Franklin, Autobiography, 127.

  136“printing business was not a profitable one” . . .“soon follow them”: Ibid.

  136“poor one” . . .“not to expect money with a wife”: Ibid., 128.

  137“intrigues with low women”: Ibid.

  137“good and faithful”: Ibid., 129.

  137follow the money: We are indebted to Michael F. Suarez, S.J., and his course at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School, Teaching the History of the Book, for drilling this concept into a permanent feature of Rebecca’s brain.

  138no gambling, no drinking, and absolutely no fornicating: Ralph Frasca, Benjamin Franklin’s Printing Network: Disseminating Virtue in Early America (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006), 22–23.

  138“‘obliged to take the lowest people’”: Ibid., 32.

  139the “indentured” part of indentured servitude: James N. Green and Peter Stallybrass, Benjamin Franklin: Writer and Printer (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2006), 50.

  139“talkative when drunk and remarkably stupid”: May 2, 1765. Quoted in Frasca, Franklin, 27.

  139“which I took extremely amiss”: Franklin, Autobiography, 68.

  139“the exquisite pleasure”: Ibid.

  139“a state I never much admir’d”: Silence Dogood, essay 2, “Sir, Histories of Lives Are Seldom Entertaining . . .” in The New-England Courant 37, April 9–16, 1722. Accessed online via the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections Online Resources, http://www.masshist.org/online/silence_dogood/doc -viewer.php?item_id=634&pid=6.

  140“learning has brought disobedience and heresy”: The governor, a true politician, spoke these words while answering a question in a way completely unrelated to the actual question: “What course is taken about instructing the people, within your government in the Christian religion, and what provision is there made for the paying of your ministry?” Quoted in William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature in the year 1619, vol. 2 (Richmond: Samuel Pleasants, Junior, 1810), 517.

  14190 percent of all printing in the colonies: David D. Hall, “The Atlantic Economy in the Eighteenth Century,” in A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, ed. Hugh Amory and David D. Hall (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 155.

  141you really couldn’t blame him: Amory, “Reinventing,” 26.

  142“you shall print nothing without allowance”: Quoted in James N. Green, “The Book Trade in the Middle Colonies, 1680–1720,” in A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, ed. Hugh Amory and David D. Hall (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 204.

  142economic motivation for a free press: See Franklin’s “Apology for Printers,” The Pennsylvania Gazette, May 27, 1731, especially points 6 and 7. An excerpt: “. . . regarding it only as the matter of their daily labour: They print things full of spleen and animosity, with the utmost calmness and indifference . . . since in the way of their business they print such great variety of things opposite and contradictory.”

  142a press that was open to everyone: James N. Green, “English Books and Printing in the Age of Franklin,” in A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, ed. Hugh Amory and David D. Hall (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 256.

  142“a very flimsy scheme”: Franklin, Autobiography, 70.

  143“got a naughty girl with child”: Ibid., 71.

  143press was “shatter’d,”: Ibid., 78.

  143more than one printer in a Colonial city: Green, “English Books,” 248.

  144“better dressed than ever”: Franklin, Autobiography, 81.

  144“a piece of eight to drink”: Ibid., 81–82.

  144“could never forget or forgive”: Ibid., 82.

  144“I will do it my self”: Ibid., 86.

  145“see that everything was good”: Ibid., 87.

  145“no credit to give”: Ibid., 94.

  145“drank every day a
pint”: Ibid., 100.

  146“alehouse boy”: Ibid.

  146“the Water-American”: Ibid., 99–100.

  146contemporary cartoons referred to them as “horses”: There’s a very famous illustration in particular that appeared in the Grub-Street Journal on October 20, 1732, which shows pullers as horses and compositors as asses.

  146compositors were later called “monkeys”: Cf. Honoré de Balzac, Lost Illusions. Part First. The Two Poets. I. A Printing-House in the Provinces, Where Monkeys Are Compositors and Pressmen Are Bears; and William Savage, Dictionary of the Art of Printing: “The compositers [sic] are jocosely called Galley Slaves: Because allusively they are as it were bound to their Gallies. And the Press-men are jocosely called Horses: Because of the hard labour they go through all day long” (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1841), 12.

  146“more strength than a quart of beer”: Franklin, Autobiography, 100.

  147“uncommon quickness”: Ibid., 101.

  147compositors were paid by the number of lines: Of course this varied by time and location, but it is generally supported by documentary evidence in England during this period. For further discussion see Keith Maslen, “Jobbing Printing and the Bibliographer: New Evidence from the Bowyer Ledgers” in An Early London Printing House at Work: Studies in the Bowyer Ledgers (New York: Biographical Scoeity of America, 1993), 139–52.

  147“poor devils keep themselves always under”: Franklin, Autobiography, 100.

  148“hot water-gruel”: Ibid., 101.

  148his journeyman salary: Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 29–30.

  148weren’t even close to self-sufficient: David D. Hall, “Introduction, Part One: Some Contexts and Questions,” in A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, ed. Hugh Amory and David D. Hall (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 8.

  148American Bible was suspect: Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 71.

  149complete Bible in English would proudly be published: It’s worth noting that, beyond the economic problems, there was also a legal obstacle to an American Bible: the royal patent was held by a printer in London. According to the printer Isaiah Thomas, there was an earlier Bible printed in America, around 1752. However, it bore a false London imprint. To date, no copies of it have been discovered.

  149just replacement quotation marks: William C. Miller, Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia Printing 1728–1766: A Descriptive Bibliography (Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 1974), xxxiii.

  149first type foundry established on American soil: John Bidwell, “Printers’ Supplies and Capitalization,” in A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, ed. Hugh Amory and David D. Hall (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 169.

  149“take salt water out of books”: Quoted in Green, “English Books,” 262.

  149commonly bound in sheepskin: Miller, Philadelphia Printing, xlix.

  150issued “stitched”: Ibid., xlvii.

  150“AFTER PROFIT”: Quoted in Johan Gerritsen, “Printing at Froben’s: An Eye-Witness Account,” Studies in Bibliography 44 (1991): 150. Cf. James Raven, Business of Books (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 6: “The financing and business arrangements of the early modern book trade were surprisingly sophisticated, and very often profit, not ideology, proved the more compelling.”

  150size of a briefcase: Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 64.

  151“character and credit”: Franklin, Autobiography, 119.

  151“ostentatious, almost superhuman speed”: Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 32.

  151“no way entertaining”: Franklin, Autobiography, 119. Stuff is almost an appropriate word here—it’s the technical term for the pulpy liquid that papermakers pulled from their vats to create paper.

  151“enough for America”: Ibid., 67.

  152“what relates to A”: Pennsylvania Gazette, December 24, 1728. Today, only a few copies of this newspaper are known to exist, all in institutions.

  152“will probably be fifty years”: Franklin’s own Pennsylvania Gazette, October 2, 1729.

  153text he printed was a mess: Franklin, Autobiography, 121, says it was printed “in a coarse and blundering manner.” See also Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 37.

  153“now and then . . . satirize a little”: The quote in which we reveal our own debt to Franklin. “The Busy-Body, No. 4,” American Weekly Mercury, February 25, 1729.

  154“the life of a paper.”: This was James Parker, in a 1769 letter to Franklin. Quoted in Frasca, Printing Network, 142.

  154“better distributer of advertisements”: Franklin, Autobiography, 126–27.

  154“bribing the riders”: Ibid., 127.

  154inexactitude: Ibid., 172.

  154subscriptions had jumped: Green and Stallybrass, 36–37.

  155more than 50 percent of Franklin’s income: This is during the period of his partnership with Hall, cf. Miller, Philadelphia Printing, xxx.

  155paper from England: Ibid., xxxviii.

  155“forcing Franklin to import paper”: Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 29, 40.

  155a new local mill: Ibid., 40.

  155eighty-three tons of rags: Ibid., 40.

  156“more copies of almanacs were sold than all other”: James Raven, The Publishing Business in Eighteenth-Century England (Suffolk: Boydell Brewer, 2014), 201–2.

  156“two of them are dead”: Poor Richard’s Almanack, June 1738; December 1732 (the first of the Poor Richard Almanacs); and July 1735.

  156“copper-plate press”: Franklin, Autobiography, 112.

  156“no one else in America”: Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 29.

  156dominating the transatlantic book trade: Ibid., 45.

  157“wrapping papers for soap and tobacco”: Ibid., 47–49,

  157four thousand salad oil advertisements: Raven, Publishing, 116.

  157whatever issue is fashionable at the moment: Andrew Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 152.

  157receipts, lottery tickets, advertisements: Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 49.

  158“most delightful carpet advertisement ever created”: Robert N. Essick, William Blake, Printmaker (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 81.

  158printer’s bread and butter: Pettegree, Reformation, 153.

  158substantial source of income: See Green, “English Books”, 266; and Scott E. Casper and Joan Shelley Rubin, “The History of the Book in America,” in The Book: A Global History, ed. Michael F. Suarez, S.J., and H. R. Woudhuysen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 685.

  158“regular, quick turnover”: Raven, Publishing, 45.

  158literally stopped the presses: Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 47.

  158chocolate, whalebone, pickled sturgeon: Amory, “Reinventing,” 45.

  158“wealthiest in all the colonies”: Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 45.

  159“after getting the first hundred pound”: Franklin, Autobiography, 180–81.

  159“sent one of my journeymen to Charleston”: Ibid., 166.

  159“with Franklin at the center”: This quote is from Green and Stallybrass, Franklin, 42; but for a book-length treatment, see Frasca, Printing Network.

  160gathering place for that community: Green, “English Books,” 271.

  160“vehicles of discussion”: Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, vol. 2 (Worchester, MA: Isaiah Thomas Jr., 1810), 403, quoting Miller, Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century.

  160carried weight in South Carolina: Frasca, Printing Network, 72–73.

  160“could happen to them”: Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 207.

  160“symbol of colonial opposition”: Frasca, Printing Network, 149.

  161no one revolted: Raven, Publishing, 69.

  161pre-Revolutionary furor: Hall, “Atlantic Economy,” 156. See
also Charles E. Clark, “Early American Journalism: News and Opinion in the Popular Press,” in A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, ed. Hugh Amory and David D. Hall (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 361.

  161melted it down to form bullets: Thomas, History, 313.

  161agent for George Washington’s Culper Spy Ring: Unsurprisingly, the documentation for Revolutionary-era spy efforts is sparse, but most scholars today agree that Rivington was an agent, if they can’t quite agree on the dates he worked for General Washington. See Todd Andrlik, “James Rivington: King’s Printer and Patriot Spy?” Journal of the American Revolution, March 3, 2014, https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/03/james-rivington-kings-printer-patriot-spy/;and Kara Pierce, “A Revolutionary Masquerade: The Chronicle of James Rivington,” Binghamton Journal of History, last updated August 24, 2010, https://www.binghamton.edu/history/resources/journal-of-history/chronicles-of-james-rivington.html.

  161“starting the American Revolution”: Morgan, Franklin, 15.

  162“expense of heating the iron”: As recounted in Frasca, Printing Network, 152.

  162“mere mechanics”: Stephen Botein, “‘Meer Mechanics’ and an Open Press: The Business and Political Strategies of Colonial American Printers,” Perspectives in American History 9 (1975), 222.

  Chapter 7: Angelic Visions and Deadly Terrors

  163“photographer of his day”: Febvre and Martin, Coming of the Book, 102.

  163reproduce cat hair: William M. Ivins Jr., Prints and Visual Communication (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969), 70.

  164“be enslaved by another man’s”: William Blake, Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion (London: W. Blake, 1804), 10.

  164wax, needles, and nitric acid: Or, as was often the case, a combination of all three. See William M. Ivins Jr., How Prints Look, revised by Marjorie B. Cohn (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), 46. See also Anthony Griffiths, Prints and Printmaking: An Introduction to the History and Techniques (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), for a survey of illustration processes, including relief, intaglio, planographic, and photomechanical processes.

  165“cheap, crude, and effective”: R. W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 5.