George Nicol (bookseller)
Encyclopedia
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In 1781, he became bookseller to George III, a position he held until 1820. In 1785, he published an improved edition of James Cook's
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
third voyage. In 1786, he became involved with John Boydell's
John Boydell
John Boydell was an 18th-century British publisher noted for his reproductions of engravings. He helped alter the trade imbalance between Britain and France in engravings and initiated a British tradition in the art form...
Shakespeare Gallery
Boydell Shakespeare Gallery
The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London, England, was the first stage of a three-part project initiated in November 1786 by engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting...
and bore responsibility for the letterpress. He and the others in the project wanted to create a type that would be both utilitarian and beautiful.
Early life and work
Nicol was born in Scotland, probably in May 1740 (or perhaps in 1741). Around 1769, he moved to London and began working for his uncle, David Wilson at his shop in the StrandStrand, London
Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...
. Later, the two men became partners. By spring 1773, Nicol had already become sufficiently successful to receive the king's informal commission to purchase books on his behalf. At the sale of the library of James West
James West (antiquary)
James West FRS was a British politician and antiquary, who served as President of the Royal Society between 1768 and 1772....
, president of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
, fellow booksellers such as John Almon
John Almon
John Almon was an English journalist and writer on political subjects, notable for his efforts to secure the right to publish reports on the debates in Parliament....
were surprised when Nicol bought almost all available books printed by William Caxton
William Caxton
William Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England...
. One remarked that "a Scotchman had lavished away the king's money in buying old black-letter books." In fact, Nicol had instructions from George III not to bid against any buyers who wanted "books of science and belles lettres for their own progressive or literary pursuits".
As Nicol's business prospered there were changes to his business partners and premises over time. Initially the business was styled Wilson and Nicol. Both names appeared on the catalogue issued in 1773 to sell the library of Henry Sacheverell
Henry Sacheverell
Henry Sacheverell was an English High Church clergyman and politician.-Early life:The son of Joshua Sacheverell, rector of St Peter's, Marlborough,...
. David Wilson died in 1777, and by 1781 Nicol was trading under his own name alone. His shop appears to have operated at 441 The Strand from 1778 to 1788. After Wilson's death, Nicol inherited his share in The Gazetteer and took a close interest in the operation of the newspaper, which published until 1797. In 1779, Nicol was appointed Bookseller to the Great Wardrobe, a royal title he held for three years until the abolition of the Great Wardrobe in 1782.
In 1787, Nicol moved his operations west to Pall Mall, purchasing 51 Pall Mall on 26 February 1787 and 58 Pall Mall the same year. He appears to have used No. 51 as his house, and No. 58 as his bookshop. (Later in 1787, John and Josiah Boydell took a lease on 52 Pall Mall for their Shakespeare Gallery.) In 1800, the business was renamed George and William Nicol, presumably to reflect the involvement of George's son. In about 1821, the business operations moved from 58 to 51 Pall Mall. After his father retired in 1825, William continued the business under both names until 1837, and under the name William Nicol alone from 1838 to 1855. From 1839 to 1855, William's business operated from premises at 60 Pall Mall.
Among Nicol's many publications were official accounts of government-funded expeditions. These included A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1784), James Cook's log of his explorations, published four years after Cook's death, and the official account in 1795 of George, Earl Macartney
George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney
George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney, KB was an Irish-born British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat. He is often remembered for his observation following Britain's success in the Seven Years War and subsequent territorial expansion at the Treaty of Paris that Britain now controlled...
's ill-fated Embassy to China
Macartney Embassy
The Macartney Embassy, also called the Macartney Mission, was a British embassy to China in 1793. The Mission ran from 1792–94 . It is named for the first envoy of Great Britain to China, George Macartney, who led the endeavour...
.
Association with Boydell family
Nicol was married twice. Little is known of his first marriage, except that it produced a son, William. By the mid-1780s Nicol had developed a close friendship with the family of the engraver and publisher John Boydell. In November 1786, Nicol and John Boydell were among the dinner guests at the West Hampstead home of the engraver's nephew Josiah BoydellJosiah Boydell
Josiah Boydell was a British publisher and painter, whose main achievement was the establishment of the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery with his uncle, John Boydell.-Biography:...
. This dinner was the genesis for the Boydells' Shakespeare Gallery
Boydell Shakespeare Gallery
The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London, England, was the first stage of a three-part project initiated in November 1786 by engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting...
project, in which Nicol became heavily involved. By Nicol's account (published many years later) the idea of an illustrated Shakespeare edition was at least partly his own, and something he had proposed unsuccessfully in his youth to David Garrick
David Garrick
David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
. Others, including the painter George Romney
George Romney (painter)
George Romney was an English portrait painter. He was the most fashionable artist of his day, painting many leading society figures - including his artistic muse, Emma Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson....
also later claimed to have proposed the idea.
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
that so successfully combined utility with beauty that experts took it to be the work of the continental master Giambattista Bodoni
Giambattista Bodoni
Giambattista Bodoni was an Italian engraver, publisher, printer and typographer of high repute remembered for designing a family of different typefaces called Bodoni....
. Today, a revived version of this font is known as Bulmer
Bulmer (typeface)
Bulmer is the name of transitional serif typeface originally designed by William Martin in 1792 for the Shakespeare Press. The types were used for printing the Boydell Shakespeare folio edition....
.
The bibliographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin
Thomas Frognall Dibdin
Thomas Frognall Dibdin , English bibliographer, born at Calcutta, was the son of Thomas Dibdin, the sailor brother of Charles Dibdin....
reports that despite Nicol and Bulmer's satisfaction with the typeface, they were irked by continuing unfavorable comparisons to Bodoni's output. To demonstrate the quality of their new typeface that they concocted a "pretty cheat" that they called the "Bodoni Hum". Bulmer set and printed Cicero's
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
De Officiis
De Officiis
De Officiis is an essay by Marcus Tullius Cicero divided into three books, in which Cicero expounds his conception of the best way to live, behave, and observe moral obligations.- Origin :...
on four large octavo
Octavo (book)
Octavo is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multiple pages of text were printed to form the individual sections of a book...
pages in a style mimicking Bodoni's output. Implying that the type was Bodoni's, Nicol showed the sample to various customers, who were so impressed by its beauty that they were anxious to buy copies. Nicol told them "that Mr. Bodoni had an agent in town; and if they would turn to the bottom of the last page of the specimen, they would find his address". The customers turned the page to find printed: "W. Bulmer and Co. Shakspeare Press." (Nicol denied Dibdin's initial assertion that the name "Bodoni Hum" derived from an exchange between Nicol and George III.) The new typeface helped build the reputation of Bulmer and Nicol's printing office, and the high quality of his output in turn helped build the reputation and popularity of British-produced books in the late-18th century. The association with William Bulmer was continued by Nicol's son William, who ran Bulmer's press from 1819 to 1835. George Nicol's partnership with Bulmer was formally dissolved on 31 December 1819.
As well as Nicol's substantial involvement with Boydell's developing Shakespeare Gallery, he also embarked on a romance with Mary Boydell, niece of John and sister of the painter Josiah Boydell
Josiah Boydell
Josiah Boydell was a British publisher and painter, whose main achievement was the establishment of the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery with his uncle, John Boydell.-Biography:...
. Mary had previously toured Europe with her uncle and written an illustrated memoir of the trip. She was described as a beauty at the time and was sought after by several suitors.
On 9 July 1787 as Nicol and Mary Boydell were walking up Prince's Street (now the southern section of Wardour Street) near Leicester Square
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
, Mary Boydell was shot by Dr. John Elliot
John Elliot (scientist and physician)
John Elliot MD was a physician and scientist in eighteenth-century London who was the first person to conjecture that different parts of the retina respond to particular colours of light. However, he was obsessed with Mary Boydell, daughter of the publisher John Boydell, and in 1787 was arrested...
with a pair of pistols tied together. Although the shots had been close enough to burn half her cloak, Mary was only bruised by the attack. Elliot was a former suitor of Mary's who had become convinced that she had reneged on a promise to marry him, and that he had thereby lost a share in what he believed to be John Boydell's £30,000 fortune. Elliot was also the developer of the idea that different elements of the retina respond to different portions of the spectrum of light, a theory advanced in a posthumously published medical textbook.
At Elliot's subsequent Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
trial, it was argued that he may have failed to load his pistols with shot, or have intentionally used unloaded weapons. Elliot's counsel unsuccessfully attempted also to argue a defense of insanity, based largely on the supposedly evident insanity of Elliot's theories of solar radiation. The jury nevertheless acquitted Elliott of attempted murder as they did not accept that the pistols had been loaded. Elliot remained charged with assault and was remanded to Newgate Gaol, where he refused food and water
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
and died on 22 July 1787. George Nicol and Mary Boydell were married on 8 September 1787. Mary became a print collector and writer in her own right. She died on 21 December 1820 and her prints were bought by the Duke of Buckingham. Nicol and his son accompanied Josiah and John North Boydell in the funeral procession for John Boydell on 19 December 1804.
Librarian and auctioneer
John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe
John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe KG, KT, PC was a Scottish nobleman and bibliophile.Born in Hanover Square, London, on 23 April 1740, Ker succeeded his father to become the 3rd Duke of Roxburghe in 1755. It is said that he fell in love with Christina Sophia Albertina, oldest daughter of the Duke...
and Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton
Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton
Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, KG, PC , styled Earl of Euston between 1747 and 1757, was a British Whig statesman of the Georgian era...
. In 1812, after the Duke of Roxburghe's death he worked with a fellow bookseller, Robert Harding Evans
Robert Harding Evans
Robert Harding Evans , bookseller and auctioneer.Evans, was the son of Thomas Evans . After an education at Westminster School he was apprenticed to Thomas Payne of the Mews Gate, and succeeded to the business of James Edwards , bookseller in Pall Mall, which Evans continued until 1812...
, on the sale of the duke's extensive library. Nicol wrote the catalogue and organised the auction. The sale went on for 42 days, garnered £23,341 (the books had been purchased for £5,000), and started a "bibliomania" and the Roxburghe Club
Roxburghe Club
The Roxburghe Club was formed on 17 June 1812 by leading bibliophiles, at the time the library of the Duke of Roxburghe was auctioned. It took 45 days to sell the entire collection. The first edition of Boccaccio's Decameron, printed by Chrisopher Valdarfer of Venice in 1471, was sold to the...
. It was Evans's first experience as an auctioneer, and the huge success of the sale spurred him to become the leading book auctioneer in early 19th-century London. Nicol and Evans collaborated again in 1815, on the sale of the library of the Duke of Grafton.
Later life
George Nicol retired in 1825 and Evans conducted a sale of Nicol's library the same year. Among the works sold was the copy of the Gutenberg BibleGutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press, and marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status...
on vellum that is now in The Huntington Library
The Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens is an educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington in San Marino, in the San Rafael Hills near Pasadena, California in the United States...
. After a long illness, Nicol died at his home in Pall Mall
Pall Mall, London
Pall Mall is a street in the City of Westminster, London, and parallel to The Mall, from St. James's Street across Waterloo Place to the Haymarket; while Pall Mall East continues into Trafalgar Square. The street is a major thoroughfare in the St James's area of London, and a section of the...
on 25 June 1828. Both he and his wife are buried at St. Olave Old Jewry
St. Olave Old Jewry
St Olave, Old Jewry sometimes known as Upwell Old Jewry was a church in the City of London located between the street called Old Jewry and Ironmonger Lane. Destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, the church was rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher Wren...
.