Friday 9 November 2018

690) Jacob Tonson

Jacob Tonson, sometimes referred to as Jacob Tonson the elder (1655–1736). Eighteenth-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.

- "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
."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Tonson?fbclid=IwAR1wDOWGR7bz5RV63y-OceMRAYOaUb_B4kOQUGPzmafh-aPbhzfYKRiAV_c
and https://books.google.co.uk/ 

(Portrait of Tonson
by the artist Sir Godfrey Kneller)

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