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  • 9 - A year’s work in the London printing house of the Bowyers

  • from PART III - THE TECHNOLOGIES AND AESTHETICS OF BOOK PRODUCTION
  • Edited by Michael F. Suarez, SJ, University of Virginia, Michael L. Turner, Bodleian Library, Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 September 2010
    Print publication:
    29 October 2009, pp 218-229

  • Summary

    The London printers William Bowyer, father and son, entered the year 1731 with justifiable confidence. The elder Bowyer had been in business since 1699, his skill and integrity securing valuable customers. Chief among these were the London booksellers, the wholesaling and retailing entrepreneurs who together virtually monopolized the British book trade. A closer sense of the resultant rhythms of work may be gained by surveying the year's work as a whole. There were twenty-five pay periods for the year, each ending on a Saturday. Seventeen covered the previous two weeks' work, the others either one or three weeks. The twenty-five works underline the printer's dependence on the London booksellers, especially when it is also noted that Bowyer had been given the printing of only part of seven works. Parliamentary work was thus all the more sought after, for it eventually yielded Bowyer (and his competitor Richardson) something like double the profit.