The firm of Lintot

Abstract

This thesis is an attempt to organise material gathered from various short accounts of Bernard Lintot, bookseller, together with the result of the reading of contemporary newspapers from 1698 to 1758 and of five years' research among his own publications, to form the first complete history of the lives and careers of Lintot and of his son Henry, who, up to the present, has often been dismissed rather perfunctorily. It comprises a brief biographical note on both father and son and an account of the rise of the firm of Lintot in Fleet Street up to the time of Bernard's retirement, and its gradual decline after Henry had obtained the patent of Law Printer and devoted himself almost entirely to the production of law books; a third chapter, complementary to this last, discusses the publications of the Lintot house in relation to contemporary literature and taste. A whole chapter is occupied by an account of relations between Pope and the Lintots since these are so important apart of their careers, and to many the most interesting among the firm's transactions. From the material collected for these studies emerges a consideration of the various processes in the production of an eighteenth-century book from the time that the copy came into the bookseller's hands until the title-page was posted up outside his shop. Finally, appendices give, first, a complete hand list of the publications of the firm; secondly, entries from Lintot's own account book Copies when Purchased; Pope's letter to the Earl of Burlington; a copy of a very rare folio The Catholick Poet; copies of all agreements between Lintot and Pope and accounts of sums paid to Henry Woodfall the printer, and a transcription of Bernard Lintot's Will.