ABSTRACT
The best-known contemporary definition of 'publisher' is that given in the third edition of Dyche's Dictionary (1740) and subsequently cited by the editors of the OED, namely, that a publisher is 'among the Booksellers, ... one that has his name put at the bottom of pamphlets, news-papers, &c. tho' the property is in another person, to whom he is accountable for the sale'. There are less neutral versions, such as that in the Gentleman's and lAdy's Palladium for 1752 in which the publisher is 'a sort of Bookseller in Miniature, but guilty of far greater Extortion since He neither advances any Money, nor runs the least Hazard, and yet is hardly satisfied with 301. per Cent. per Month, for vending Another's Property', 3 but they merely add colour at the expense of clarity. The original definition is accurate as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough, and its accuracy has, in any case, to be' demonstrated. In seeking to replace this incomplete and abstract definition with a full historical account I have tried to do three things. First, I have attempted to identify all those individuals considered publishers by their contemporaries, to determine the lengths of their publishing careers, the names of their predecessors and successors, if any, and the locations of their shops. Second, I have examined the surviving evidence of the activities of these publishers in order to see what precisely they did and what it was that set them apart from their contemporaries in the trade. And finally, I have tried to answer the questions when these specialized trade publishers emerged, when they disappeared, and why.
