Page:Plomer Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers 1907.djvu/13

 PREFACE.

HE object of this work is to bring together the information available respecting the men and women who printed and sold books during the twenty-seven years from 1641 to 1667. It is an attempt to fill the gap between the Stationers' Registers and the Term Catalogues so ably edited by Mr. Edward Arber. The information consists of imprints showing the various places in which such booksellers and printers carried on their business, such biographical details as could be gleaned from various printed and manuscript sources, and an indication of the character of the trade carried on by each bookseller. As a farther help to the bibliographer, I have included a notice of all publishers' lists that I have met with. It was my original intention to have given an indication of the work of each printing house, but I soon found that this was impossible. Such printing houses as those of the Fletchers, Roycroft, or Warren are in themselves a study, and any attempt to generalize was worse than useless. The chief sources of information have been: (1) The Thomason Tracts; (2) the Bagford and Ames Collections of Title-pages; (3) Hazlitt's Collections and Notes through the medium of Mr. G. J. Gray's invaluable Index; (4) the Registers and Apprenticeship Books of the Company of Stationers; (5) the State Papers and other documents at the Public Record Office; (6) the Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission; (7) Wills in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury at Somerset House.

I have made no attempt to distinguish between booksellers and publishers. There is no evidence to show that any of the men mentioned