Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/72

 6o A LAWSUIT AS TO AN EARLY EDITION OF THE < PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.' OME interesting documents dealing with the publication of Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Progress ' have just come to light at the Public Record Office. They do not tell us who was the first compositor to handle the manuscript, nor at whose printing office the first edition was worked off; but they concern the only printer whose name has ever been associated with the book viz., Thomas Braddyl and supply a good deal of information on other matters in connection with its publication about which nothing has hitherto been known. Few books, we imagine, present such a bewilder- ing bibliographical puzzle as the series of oclavos and duodecimos that represent the various editions of the 'Pilgrim's Progress' before 1700. As everyone knows, the author placed his manuscript in the hands of Nathaniel Ponder, a publisher who lived at the sign of the Peacock in the Poultry; but no printer's name ever appeared in any of the editions, and it is Ponder himself who brings Braddyl to our notice, as the printer of surreptitious and. unauthorized editions. That such editions were published there is no reason to doubt, but putting the evidence contained in these documents beside the very high character for honesty and fair dealing, given to Thomas