Jacob Tonson
Encyclopedia
Jacob Tonson, sometimes referred to as Jacob Tonson the elder (1655/6–1736) was an 18th-century English bookseller and publisher.
Tonson published editions of John Dryden
and John Milton
, and is best known for having obtained a copyright
on the plays of William Shakespeare
by buying up the rights of the heirs of the publisher of the Fourth Folio
after the Statute of Anne
went into effect. He was also the founder of the famous Kit-Cat Club
. His nephew, Jacob Tonson the younger (1682–1735) was his business partner. The business was continued by the younger Tonson's son Jacob Tonson (1714–1767).
from Charles II
, and whose descendants became Barons Riversdale. His father's will left him and his elder brother Richard, as well as three sisters, each £100, to be paid when they came of age. On 5 June 1670 Jacob was apprenticed to Thomas Basset, a stationer, for eight years. Having been admitted a freeman of the Company of Stationers on 20 December 1677, he began business on his own account, following his brother Richard, who had commenced in 1676, and had published, among other things, Thomas Otway
's Don Carlos. Richard Tonson had a shop within Gray's Inn Gate; Jacob Tonson's shop was for many years at the Judge's Head in Chancery Lane
, near Fleet Street
.
It has been said that when Tonson bought the copy of Troilus and Cressida (1679), the first play of John Dryden
's that he published, he was obliged to borrow the purchase money (£20) from Abel Swalle, another bookseller. The names of both booksellers appear on the title-page, as was often the case at that time. Tonson was sufficiently well off to purchase plays by Otway and Nahum Tate
. In 1681 the brothers Richard and Jacob joined in publishing Dryden's Spanish Friar, and in 1683 Jacob obtained a valuable property by purchasing from Barbazon Ailmer, the assignee of Samuel Simmons, one half of his right in Paradise Lost. The other half was purchased at an advance in 1690. Tonson afterwards said he had made more by Paradise Lost than by any other poem.
In the earlier part of his life Tonson was much associated with Dryden. A step which did much to establish his position was the publication in 1684 of a volume of Miscellany Poems, under Dryden's editorship. Other volumes followed in 1685, 1693, 1694, 1703, and 1708, and the collection, which was several times reprinted, is known as both as Dryden's Miscellany and Tonson's Miscellany. During the ensuing year Tonson continued to bring out pieces by Dryden, and on 6 October 1691 paid thirty guineas for all the author's rights in the printing of the tragedy of Cleomenes. Joseph Addison
's Poem to his Majesty was published by Tonson in 1695, and there was some correspondence respecting a proposed joint translation of Herodotus
by Boyle
, Richard Blackmore
, Addison, and others.
Dryden's translation of Virgil
, executed between 1693 and 1696, was published by Tonson in July 1697 by subscription. Serious financial differences arose between the poet and his publisher, and Dryden's letters to Tonson (1695–7) are full of complaints of meanness and sharp practice and of refusals to accept clipped or bad money. Tonson would pay nothing for notes; Dryden retorted, "The notes and prefaces shall be short, because you shall get the more by saving paper." He added that all the trade were sharpers, Tonson not more than others. Dryden described Tonson thus, in lines written under his portrait, and afterwards printed in Faction Displayed (1705):
Subsequently the letters became more friendly, and on the publication of Alexander's Feast, in late 1697, Dryden wrote to Tonson, "I hope it has done you service, and will do more."
Dryden's collection of translations from Boccaccio, Chaucer, and others, known as The Fables, was published by Tonson in November 1699; a second edition did not appear until 1713. There is an undated letter from Mrs. Aphra Behn
to Tonson at Bayfordbury
, thanking him warmly for what he had said on her behalf to Dryden. She begged hard for five pounds more than Tonson offered for some of her verses. In connection with Jeremy Collier
's attack on the stage, the Middlesex justices presented the playhouses in May 1698, and also William Congreve for writing the Double Dealer, Thomas d'Urfey
for Don Quixote, and Tonson and Brisco, booksellers, for printing them. Tonson published Congreve's reply to Collier, and at a later date The Faithful Friend and The Confederacy by his friend, Sir John Vanbrugh
.
Before the end of the century Tonson had moved from the Judge's Head to a shop in Gray's Inn Gate, probably the one previously occupied by his brother Richard. It is not unlikely that Richard was dead, and that Jacob, who had no children, and seemingly never married, now took into partnership his
nephew Jacob, whose son was afterwards to be his heir. It is not always easy to distinguish the uncle from the nephew in later years; the latter is sometimes referred to as Tonson junior.
By 1700 Tonson's position was well established, and about that time the Kit-Cat Club
was founded, with Tonson as secretary. The meetings were first held at a mutton-pie shop in Shire Lane, kept by Christopher Cat, and may have begun with suppers given by Tonson to his literary friends. About 1703 Tonson purchased a house at Barn Elms, and built a room there for the club. In a poem on the club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, we find:
Tonson was satirised in several skits, and it was falsely alleged that he had been expelled by the club, or had withdrawn from the society in scorn of being their jest any longer.
In 1703 Tonson went to the Dutch Republic to obtain paper and engravings for the fine edition of Caesar's Commentaries, which was ultimately published under Samuel Clarke
's care in 1712. At Amsterdam and Rotterdam he met Addison, and assisted in some abortive negotiations for Addison's employment as travelling companion to Lord Hertford
, son of the Duke of Somerset
. In 1705 Tonson published Addison's Remarks on several Parts of Italy.
Verses by young Alexander Pope
were circulating among the critics in 1705, and in April 1706 Tonson wrote to Pope proposing to publish a pastoral poem of his. Pope's pastorals ultimately appeared in Tonson's sixth Miscellany (May 1709). William Wycherley
wrote that Tonson had long been gentleman-usher to the Muses: "you will make Jacob's ladder raise you to immortality."
Nicholas Rowe
's edition of Shakespeare, in six volumes, was published early in 1709 by Tonson, who had previously advertised for materials. Richard Steele
dined at Tonson's in 1708–9, sometimes to get a bill discounted, sometimes to hear manuscripts read and advise upon them. There is a tradition that in earlier days Steele had had a daughter by a daughter of Tonson's; if this is true, it must apparently have been a daughter of Richard Tonson, Jacob's brother. In the autumn of 1710 Tonson moved to the Shakespeare's Head, opposite Catherine
Street in the Strand
; his former shop at Gray's Inn Gate was announced for sale in the Tatler for 14 October (No. 237); and it seems to have been taken by Thomas Osborne, stationer, the father of the afterwards well-known publisher, Thomas Osborne (died 1767). On 26 July 1711, after a long interval, Swift met Addison and Steele "at young Jacob Tonson's". "The two Jacobs", says Jonathan Swift
to Esther Johnson
, "think it I who have made the secretary take from them the printing of the Gazette, which they are going to lose.... Jacob came to me t'other day to make his court; but I told him it was too late, and that it was not my doing." Accounts furnished to Steele by Tonson of the sale of the collective editions of the Tatler and Spectator have been preserved; from October 1712 Tonson's name was joined with Samuel Buckley's as publisher of the Spectator. In November 1712 Addison and Steele sold all their right and title in one half of the copies of the first seven volumes of the Spectator to Tonson the younger, for £575, and all rights in the other half for a similar sum to Buckley. Buckley in October 1714 reassigned his half-share in the Spectator to Tonson junior for £500.
Tonson published Addison's tragedy, Cato, in April 1713; and, according to a concocted letter of Pope's, the true reason why Steele brought the Guardian to an end in October was a quarrel with Tonson, its publisher; "he stood engaged to his bookseller in articles of penalty for all the
Guardians, and by desisting two days, and altering the title of the paper to that of the Englishman, was quit of the obligation, those papers being printed by Buckley." There are various reasons why this story is improbable; the truth seems to be that Steele was anxious to write on politics with a freer hand than was practicable in the Guardian. In the summer of 1714 we hear of Steele writing political pamphlets at Tonson's, where there were three bottles of wine of Steele's, and in October Tonson printed Steele's Ladies' Library. Tonson appears in Rowe's Dialogue between Tonson and Congreve, in imitation of Horace:
In the same year Tonson, with Barnaby Bernard Lintot
and William Taylor, was appointed one of the printers of the parliamentary votes. Next year he paid fifty guineas for the copyright of Addison's comedy, The Drummer, and published Thomas Tickell
's translation of the first book of the Iliad, which gave offence to Pope. On 6 February 1718 Lintot entered into a partnership agreement with Tonson for the purchase of plays during eighteen months following that date.
In one of several amusing letters from Vanbrugh, now at Bayfordbury, Tonson, who was then in Paris, was congratulated upon his luck in South Sea stock, and there is other evidence that he made a large sum in connection with Law's Mississippi scheme
. 'He has got £40,000' wrote Robert Arbuthnot
; 'riches will make people forget their trade.' In January 1720 Tonson obtained a grant to himself and his nephew of the office of stationer, bookseller, and printer to some of the principal public offices; and on 12 October 1722 he assigned the whole benefit of the grant to his nephew. The grant was afterwards renewed by Robert Walpole
, in 1733, for a second term of forty years. The elder Tonson seems to have given up business about 1720. He had bought the Hazells estate at Ledbury, Herefordshire
, and in 1721 he was sending presents of cider to the Dukes of Grafton
and Newcastle
, the latter of whom called Tonson "my dear old friend," and asked him to give him his company in Sussex. Henceforth we may suppose, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that "Tonson" in contemporary allusions means the nephew.
Steele's Conscious Lovers appeared in 1722, and Tonson assigned to Lintot halt the copyright for £70. He had to apply to the court of chancery for an injunction to stop Robert Tooke and others printing a pirated edition of the play; the sum paid for the copyright was £40. In the same year Tonson published the Duke of Buckingham
's Works, and in 1725 Pope's edition of Shakespeare.
Proposals were issued by Tonson in January 1729 for completing the subscription to the new edition of Rymer's Fœdera, in seventeen folio volumes (of which fifteen were then printed), at fifty guineas the set. The work was finished in 1735. Tonson published a quarto edition of Waller's works, edited by Fenton, in 1729, and an edition of Lord Lansdowne
's works in 1732. Pope was annoyed to find in 1731 that Tonson was to be one of the publishers of Lewis Theobald
's proposed edition of Shakespeare, in which he feared an attack on his own editorial work, but he professed to be satisfied with the assurances he received. In writing to the elder Tonson on this subject, Pope asked for any available information respecting the "Man of Ross," and, in thanking
him for the particulars received, explained his intention in singling out this man as the centre of a poem. Earlier in the year the elder Tonson was in town, and Pope, writing to Lord Oxford
, said that if he would come to see him he would show him a phenomenon worth seeing, "old Jacob Tonson, who is the perfect image and likeness of Bayle's Dictionary; so full of matter, secret history, and wit and spirit, at almost fourscore." On 19 March Lord Oxford, Lord Bathurst
, Pope, and Gay
dined with old Tonson at Barnes and drank Swift's health. In 1734 Samuel Gibbons was appointed stationer to the Prince of Wales in place of Jacob Tonson.
Jacob Tonson junior predeceased his uncle, dying on 25 November 1735, worth £100,000. His will, of great length, was written on 16 August and proved on 6 December 1735.
The elder Tonson's death at Ledbury followed that of his nephew on 2 April 1736, when he was described as worth £40,000. His will was made on 2 November 1735.
A painting of the elder Tonson by Godfrey Kneller
is among the Kit-Cat portraits; it is best known through Faber's engraving. Pope says that Tonson obtained portraits from Kneller without payment by flattering him and sending him presents of venison and wine. Dryden's satirical account of his appearance has been quoted; Pope, in The Dunciad
calls him "left-legged Jacob" and "genial Jacob". John Dunton
describes Tonson as "a very good judge of persons and authors; and as there is nobody more competently qualified to give their opinion of another, so there is none who does it with a more severe exactness or with less partiality; for, to do Mr. Tonson justice, he speaks his mind upon all occasions, and will flatter nobody." No doubt this roughness of manner wore off as Tonson grew in prosperity.
spoke of him as "the late amiable Mr. Tonson."
In 1750 he was High Sheriff of Surrey
, and in 1759 he paid the fine for being excused serving the same office for the city of London and county of Middlesex. There is a story of his having twice helped Henry Fielding
when that writer was unable to pay his taxes. Tonson died on 31 March 1767, without issue, in a house on the north side of the Strand, near Catherine Street, whither he had removed the business some years earlier. His will was made in 1763. In 1775 letters of administration of the goods of Jacob Tonson, left unadministered by Richard Tonson, were granted to William Baker, esq. (M.P. for Hertfordshire), and in 1823, Baker having failed to administer, letters of administration were granted to Joseph Rogers.
, and in 1768 MP for New Windsor. In some correspondence with the Duke of Newcastle in 1767, the duke spoke of his old friendship with Richard Tonson, "the heir of one I honoured and loved, and have passed many most agreeable hours with." Richard Tonson died on 9 October 1772.
Besides the papers at Bayfordbury, there is a considerable collection of Tonson papers in the British Museum, some relating to business and some to private matters; but many of them are damaged or fragmentary.
Tonson published editions of John Dryden
John Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
and John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, and is best known for having obtained a copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
on the plays of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
by buying up the rights of the heirs of the publisher of the Fourth Folio
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
after the Statute of Anne
Statute of Anne
The Statute of Anne was the first copyright law in the Kingdom of Great Britain , enacted in 1709 and entering into force on 10 April 1710...
went into effect. He was also the founder of the famous Kit-Cat Club
Kit-Cat Club
The Kit-Cat Club was an early 18th century English club in London with strong political and literary associations, committed to the furtherance of Whig objectives, meeting at the Trumpet tavern in London, and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside.The first meetings were held at a tavern in...
. His nephew, Jacob Tonson the younger (1682–1735) was his business partner. The business was continued by the younger Tonson's son Jacob Tonson (1714–1767).
History
Tonson was the second son of Jacob Tonson, chirurgeon and citizen of London, who died in 1668. He is believed to have been related to Major Richard Tonson, who obtained a grant of land in county CorkCounty Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
from Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
, and whose descendants became Barons Riversdale. His father's will left him and his elder brother Richard, as well as three sisters, each £100, to be paid when they came of age. On 5 June 1670 Jacob was apprenticed to Thomas Basset, a stationer, for eight years. Having been admitted a freeman of the Company of Stationers on 20 December 1677, he began business on his own account, following his brother Richard, who had commenced in 1676, and had published, among other things, Thomas Otway
Thomas Otway
Thomas Otway was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for Venice Preserv'd, or A Plot Discover'd .-Life:...
's Don Carlos. Richard Tonson had a shop within Gray's Inn Gate; Jacob Tonson's shop was for many years at the Judge's Head in Chancery Lane
Chancery Lane
Chancery Lane is the street which has been the western boundary of the City of London since 1994 having previously been divided between Westminster and Camden...
, near Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
.
It has been said that when Tonson bought the copy of Troilus and Cressida (1679), the first play of John Dryden
John Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
's that he published, he was obliged to borrow the purchase money (£20) from Abel Swalle, another bookseller. The names of both booksellers appear on the title-page, as was often the case at that time. Tonson was sufficiently well off to purchase plays by Otway and Nahum Tate
Nahum Tate
Nahum Tate was an Irish poet, hymnist, and lyricist, who became England's poet laureate in 1692.-Life:Nahum Teate came from a family of Puritan clergymen...
. In 1681 the brothers Richard and Jacob joined in publishing Dryden's Spanish Friar, and in 1683 Jacob obtained a valuable property by purchasing from Barbazon Ailmer, the assignee of Samuel Simmons, one half of his right in Paradise Lost. The other half was purchased at an advance in 1690. Tonson afterwards said he had made more by Paradise Lost than by any other poem.
In the earlier part of his life Tonson was much associated with Dryden. A step which did much to establish his position was the publication in 1684 of a volume of Miscellany Poems, under Dryden's editorship. Other volumes followed in 1685, 1693, 1694, 1703, and 1708, and the collection, which was several times reprinted, is known as both as Dryden's Miscellany and Tonson's Miscellany. During the ensuing year Tonson continued to bring out pieces by Dryden, and on 6 October 1691 paid thirty guineas for all the author's rights in the printing of the tragedy of Cleomenes. Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was a man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison...
's Poem to his Majesty was published by Tonson in 1695, and there was some correspondence respecting a proposed joint translation of Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
by Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
, Richard Blackmore
Richard Blackmore
Sir Richard Blackmore , English poet and physician, is remembered primarily as the object of satire and as an example of a dull poet. He was, however, a respected physician and religious writer....
, Addison, and others.
Dryden's translation of Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
, executed between 1693 and 1696, was published by Tonson in July 1697 by subscription. Serious financial differences arose between the poet and his publisher, and Dryden's letters to Tonson (1695–7) are full of complaints of meanness and sharp practice and of refusals to accept clipped or bad money. Tonson would pay nothing for notes; Dryden retorted, "The notes and prefaces shall be short, because you shall get the more by saving paper." He added that all the trade were sharpers, Tonson not more than others. Dryden described Tonson thus, in lines written under his portrait, and afterwards printed in Faction Displayed (1705):
With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair;
With two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair,
And frowzy pores, that taint the ambient air.
Subsequently the letters became more friendly, and on the publication of Alexander's Feast, in late 1697, Dryden wrote to Tonson, "I hope it has done you service, and will do more."
Dryden's collection of translations from Boccaccio, Chaucer, and others, known as The Fables, was published by Tonson in November 1699; a second edition did not appear until 1713. There is an undated letter from Mrs. Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...
to Tonson at Bayfordbury
Bayfordbury
Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire is the location of the University of Hertfordshire's biology/geography field station and observatory. The site is also home to the Science Learning Centre for the East of England, which runs training courses for teachers and technicians in science learning for early...
, thanking him warmly for what he had said on her behalf to Dryden. She begged hard for five pounds more than Tonson offered for some of her verses. In connection with Jeremy Collier
Jeremy Collier
Jeremy Collier was an English theatre critic, non-juror bishop and theologian.-Life:Born in Stow cum Quy, Cambridgeshire, Collier was educated at Caius College, University of Cambridge, receiving the BA and MA . A supporter of James II, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and...
's attack on the stage, the Middlesex justices presented the playhouses in May 1698, and also William Congreve for writing the Double Dealer, Thomas d'Urfey
Thomas d'Urfey
Thomas D'Urfey was an English writer and wit. He composed plays, songs, and poetry, in addition to writing jokes. He was an important innovator and contributor in the evolution of the Ballad opera....
for Don Quixote, and Tonson and Brisco, booksellers, for printing them. Tonson published Congreve's reply to Collier, and at a later date The Faithful Friend and The Confederacy by his friend, Sir John Vanbrugh
John Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...
.
Before the end of the century Tonson had moved from the Judge's Head to a shop in Gray's Inn Gate, probably the one previously occupied by his brother Richard. It is not unlikely that Richard was dead, and that Jacob, who had no children, and seemingly never married, now took into partnership his
nephew Jacob, whose son was afterwards to be his heir. It is not always easy to distinguish the uncle from the nephew in later years; the latter is sometimes referred to as Tonson junior.
By 1700 Tonson's position was well established, and about that time the Kit-Cat Club
Kit-Cat Club
The Kit-Cat Club was an early 18th century English club in London with strong political and literary associations, committed to the furtherance of Whig objectives, meeting at the Trumpet tavern in London, and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside.The first meetings were held at a tavern in...
was founded, with Tonson as secretary. The meetings were first held at a mutton-pie shop in Shire Lane, kept by Christopher Cat, and may have begun with suppers given by Tonson to his literary friends. About 1703 Tonson purchased a house at Barn Elms, and built a room there for the club. In a poem on the club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, we find:
One night in seven at this convenient seat
Indulgent Bocaj [Jacob] did the Muses treat.
Tonson was satirised in several skits, and it was falsely alleged that he had been expelled by the club, or had withdrawn from the society in scorn of being their jest any longer.
In 1703 Tonson went to the Dutch Republic to obtain paper and engravings for the fine edition of Caesar's Commentaries, which was ultimately published under Samuel Clarke
Samuel Clarke
thumb|right|200px|Samuel ClarkeSamuel Clarke was an English philosopher and Anglican clergyman.-Early life and studies:...
's care in 1712. At Amsterdam and Rotterdam he met Addison, and assisted in some abortive negotiations for Addison's employment as travelling companion to Lord Hertford
Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset
General Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset was the son of Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset and his wife, Elizabeth...
, son of the Duke of Somerset
Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset
Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset , sometimes referred to as the "Proud Duke". The son of Charles Seymour, 2nd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, and Elizabeth Alington , he succeeded his brother Francis Seymour, 5th Duke of Somerset, to the dukedom when the latter was shot in 1678...
. In 1705 Tonson published Addison's Remarks on several Parts of Italy.
Verses by young Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
were circulating among the critics in 1705, and in April 1706 Tonson wrote to Pope proposing to publish a pastoral poem of his. Pope's pastorals ultimately appeared in Tonson's sixth Miscellany (May 1709). William Wycherley
William Wycherley
William Wycherley was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for the plays The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer.-Biography:...
wrote that Tonson had long been gentleman-usher to the Muses: "you will make Jacob's ladder raise you to immortality."
Nicholas Rowe
Nicholas Rowe (dramatist)
Nicholas Rowe , English dramatist, poet and miscellaneous writer, was appointed Poet Laureate in 1715.-Life:...
's edition of Shakespeare, in six volumes, was published early in 1709 by Tonson, who had previously advertised for materials. Richard Steele
Richard Steele
Sir Richard Steele was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator....
dined at Tonson's in 1708–9, sometimes to get a bill discounted, sometimes to hear manuscripts read and advise upon them. There is a tradition that in earlier days Steele had had a daughter by a daughter of Tonson's; if this is true, it must apparently have been a daughter of Richard Tonson, Jacob's brother. In the autumn of 1710 Tonson moved to the Shakespeare's Head, opposite Catherine
Street in the Strand
Strand, 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...
; his former shop at Gray's Inn Gate was announced for sale in the Tatler for 14 October (No. 237); and it seems to have been taken by Thomas Osborne, stationer, the father of the afterwards well-known publisher, Thomas Osborne (died 1767). On 26 July 1711, after a long interval, Swift met Addison and Steele "at young Jacob Tonson's". "The two Jacobs", says Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
to Esther Johnson
Esther Johnson
Esther Johnson was the English friend of Jonathan Swift, known as "Stella".Newfoundland-born author Trudy J. Morgan-Cole wrote a novel in 2006 detailing fictionalized portions of the Swift/Johnson friendship in The Violent Friendship of Esther Johnson...
, "think it I who have made the secretary take from them the printing of the Gazette, which they are going to lose.... Jacob came to me t'other day to make his court; but I told him it was too late, and that it was not my doing." Accounts furnished to Steele by Tonson of the sale of the collective editions of the Tatler and Spectator have been preserved; from October 1712 Tonson's name was joined with Samuel Buckley's as publisher of the Spectator. In November 1712 Addison and Steele sold all their right and title in one half of the copies of the first seven volumes of the Spectator to Tonson the younger, for £575, and all rights in the other half for a similar sum to Buckley. Buckley in October 1714 reassigned his half-share in the Spectator to Tonson junior for £500.
Tonson published Addison's tragedy, Cato, in April 1713; and, according to a concocted letter of Pope's, the true reason why Steele brought the Guardian to an end in October was a quarrel with Tonson, its publisher; "he stood engaged to his bookseller in articles of penalty for all the
Guardians, and by desisting two days, and altering the title of the paper to that of the Englishman, was quit of the obligation, those papers being printed by Buckley." There are various reasons why this story is improbable; the truth seems to be that Steele was anxious to write on politics with a freer hand than was practicable in the Guardian. In the summer of 1714 we hear of Steele writing political pamphlets at Tonson's, where there were three bottles of wine of Steele's, and in October Tonson printed Steele's Ladies' Library. Tonson appears in Rowe's Dialogue between Tonson and Congreve, in imitation of Horace:
Thou, Jacob Tonson, were, to my conceiving,
The cheerfullest, best, honest fellow living.
In the same year Tonson, with Barnaby Bernard Lintot
Barnaby Bernard Lintot
Barnaby Bernard Lintot , English publisher, was born at Southwater, Sussex, and started business as a publisher in London about 1698...
and William Taylor, was appointed one of the printers of the parliamentary votes. Next year he paid fifty guineas for the copyright of Addison's comedy, The Drummer, and published Thomas Tickell
Thomas Tickell
Thomas Tickell was a minor English poet and man of letters.-Life:The son of a clergyman, he was born at Bridekirk near Cockermouth, Cumberland. He was educated at St Bees School 1695-1701, and in 1701 entered the Queen's College, Oxford, taking his M.A. degree in 1709...
's translation of the first book of the Iliad, which gave offence to Pope. On 6 February 1718 Lintot entered into a partnership agreement with Tonson for the purchase of plays during eighteen months following that date.
In one of several amusing letters from Vanbrugh, now at Bayfordbury, Tonson, who was then in Paris, was congratulated upon his luck in South Sea stock, and there is other evidence that he made a large sum in connection with Law's Mississippi scheme
Mississippi Company
The "Mississippi Company" became the "Company of the West" and expanded as the "Company of the Indies" .-The Banque Royale:...
. 'He has got £40,000' wrote Robert Arbuthnot
Robert Arbuthnot (auditor)
Robert Arbuthnot, Auditor of the Exchequer in Scotland, was also sometime manager of Lord Stair's business affairs....
; 'riches will make people forget their trade.' In January 1720 Tonson obtained a grant to himself and his nephew of the office of stationer, bookseller, and printer to some of the principal public offices; and on 12 October 1722 he assigned the whole benefit of the grant to his nephew. The grant was afterwards renewed by Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
, in 1733, for a second term of forty years. The elder Tonson seems to have given up business about 1720. He had bought the Hazells estate at Ledbury, Herefordshire
Ledbury
Ledbury is a town in Herefordshire, England, lying east of Hereford, and south of the Malvern Hills.Today, Ledbury is a thriving market town in rural England. The town has a large number of timber framed buildings, in particular along Church Lane and High Street. One of Ledbury's most outstanding...
, and in 1721 he was sending presents of cider to the Dukes of Grafton
Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton
Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton KG PC was an Irish and English politician.He was born the only child of Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton and Isabella Bennet, 2nd Countess of Arlington...
and Newcastle
Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, KG, PC was a British Whig statesman, whose official life extended throughout the Whig supremacy of the 18th century. He is commonly known as the Duke of Newcastle.A protégé of Sir Robert Walpole, he served...
, the latter of whom called Tonson "my dear old friend," and asked him to give him his company in Sussex. Henceforth we may suppose, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that "Tonson" in contemporary allusions means the nephew.
Steele's Conscious Lovers appeared in 1722, and Tonson assigned to Lintot halt the copyright for £70. He had to apply to the court of chancery for an injunction to stop Robert Tooke and others printing a pirated edition of the play; the sum paid for the copyright was £40. In the same year Tonson published the Duke of Buckingham
John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby
John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, KG, PC , was a poet and notable Tory politician of the late Stuart period, who served as Lord Privy Seal and Lord President of the Council.-Career:...
's Works, and in 1725 Pope's edition of Shakespeare.
Proposals were issued by Tonson in January 1729 for completing the subscription to the new edition of Rymer's Fœdera, in seventeen folio volumes (of which fifteen were then printed), at fifty guineas the set. The work was finished in 1735. Tonson published a quarto edition of Waller's works, edited by Fenton, in 1729, and an edition of Lord Lansdowne
George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne
George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne PC was an English poet, playwright, and politician who served as a Privy Counsellor from 1712.-Early life:...
's works in 1732. Pope was annoyed to find in 1731 that Tonson was to be one of the publishers of Lewis Theobald
Lewis Theobald
Lewis Theobald , British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire...
's proposed edition of Shakespeare, in which he feared an attack on his own editorial work, but he professed to be satisfied with the assurances he received. In writing to the elder Tonson on this subject, Pope asked for any available information respecting the "Man of Ross," and, in thanking
him for the particulars received, explained his intention in singling out this man as the centre of a poem. Earlier in the year the elder Tonson was in town, and Pope, writing to Lord Oxford
Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer
Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer , styled Lord Harley between 1711 and 1724, was a British politician, bibliophile, collector and patron of the arts.-Background:...
, said that if he would come to see him he would show him a phenomenon worth seeing, "old Jacob Tonson, who is the perfect image and likeness of Bayle's Dictionary; so full of matter, secret history, and wit and spirit, at almost fourscore." On 19 March Lord Oxford, Lord Bathurst
Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst
Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst PC , known as the Lord Bathurst from 1712 to 1772, was a British politician....
, Pope, and Gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
dined with old Tonson at Barnes and drank Swift's health. In 1734 Samuel Gibbons was appointed stationer to the Prince of Wales in place of Jacob Tonson.
Jacob Tonson junior predeceased his uncle, dying on 25 November 1735, worth £100,000. His will, of great length, was written on 16 August and proved on 6 December 1735.
The elder Tonson's death at Ledbury followed that of his nephew on 2 April 1736, when he was described as worth £40,000. His will was made on 2 November 1735.
A painting of the elder Tonson by Godfrey Kneller
Godfrey Kneller
Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet was the leading portrait painter in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was court painter to British monarchs from Charles II to George I...
is among the Kit-Cat portraits; it is best known through Faber's engraving. Pope says that Tonson obtained portraits from Kneller without payment by flattering him and sending him presents of venison and wine. Dryden's satirical account of his appearance has been quoted; Pope, in The Dunciad
The Dunciad
The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version was published in 1728 anonymously. The second version, the Dunciad Variorum was published anonymously in 1729. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a...
calls him "left-legged Jacob" and "genial Jacob". John Dunton
John Dunton
John Dunton was an English bookseller and author. In 1691, he founded an Athenian Society to publish The Athenian Mercury, the first major popular periodical and first miscellaneous periodical in England.-Early life:...
describes Tonson as "a very good judge of persons and authors; and as there is nobody more competently qualified to give their opinion of another, so there is none who does it with a more severe exactness or with less partiality; for, to do Mr. Tonson justice, he speaks his mind upon all occasions, and will flatter nobody." No doubt this roughness of manner wore off as Tonson grew in prosperity.
Jacob Tonson the younger
Jacob Tonson (died 1767) (Jacob Tonson the younger) was the great-nephew of the Jacob Tonson the elder and son of Jacob Tonson junior. He carried on the publishing business in the Strand. In 1747 he paid Warburton £500 for editing Shakespeare, and he was eulogised by Steevens [sic] in the advertisement prefixed to his edition of Shakespeare 1778: "he never learned to consider the author as an under-agent to the bookseller . . . His manners were soft and his conversation delicate," but he reserved his acquaintance for a small number. Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
spoke of him as "the late amiable Mr. Tonson."
In 1750 he was High Sheriff of Surrey
High Sheriff of Surrey
-List of High Sheriffs of Surrey:The list of known High Sheriffs of Surrey extends back to 1066 At various times the High Sheriff of Surrey was also High Sheriff of Sussex -1066-1228:...
, and in 1759 he paid the fine for being excused serving the same office for the city of London and county of Middlesex. There is a story of his having twice helped Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
when that writer was unable to pay his taxes. Tonson died on 31 March 1767, without issue, in a house on the north side of the Strand, near Catherine Street, whither he had removed the business some years earlier. His will was made in 1763. In 1775 letters of administration of the goods of Jacob Tonson, left unadministered by Richard Tonson, were granted to William Baker, esq. (M.P. for Hertfordshire), and in 1823, Baker having failed to administer, letters of administration were granted to Joseph Rogers.
Richard Tonson
Richard Tonson (died 1772), the third Jacob Tonson's brother, who took little part in the concerns of the business, lived at Water Oakley, near Windsor, where he built a room for the Kit-Cat portraits. His benevolence and hospitality made him popular, and in 1747 he was elected MP for WallingfordWallingford (UK Parliament constituency)
Wallingford was a constituency in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.It was a parliamentary borough created in 1295, centred on the market town Wallingford in Berkshire . It used to return two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons; this was cut to one in 1832, and...
, and in 1768 MP for New Windsor. In some correspondence with the Duke of Newcastle in 1767, the duke spoke of his old friendship with Richard Tonson, "the heir of one I honoured and loved, and have passed many most agreeable hours with." Richard Tonson died on 9 October 1772.
Besides the papers at Bayfordbury, there is a considerable collection of Tonson papers in the British Museum, some relating to business and some to private matters; but many of them are damaged or fragmentary.
Externlay links
- Raymond N. MacKenzie, ‘Tonson, Jacob, the elder (1655/6–1736)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, January 2008, accessed 11 January 2008