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Defoe and his Northern Printers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Charles Eaton Burch*
Affiliation:
Howard University

Extract

Defoe, on his first arrival in Edinburgh in 1706 to serve his master Harley in the Union cause, selected Mrs. Agnes Campbell Anderson as his main Scottish printer. His choice of Mrs. Anderson should occasion no surprise; for in 1706 she had the largest printing establishment in the city; she was “printer to the good toun and college of the samen,” and she still held the Royal prerogative granted to her deceased husband Andrew Anderson in 1671. So far as I have been able to determine, Mrs. Anderson was Defoe's sole Scottish printer up to 1710 when he began to place some of his work with John Moncur. As is now fairly well known, Defoe's Review was printed in Edinburgh (1709–10) by Mrs. Anderson and off and on, say, to 1713 she probably printed an occasional pamphlet for him. It is certain that as late as 1712 she printed Defoe's A Seasonable Warning against the Insinuations of Papists and Jacobites. Being a Letter from a Gentleman at the Court of Hanover. In addition to the Edinburgh edition of the Review, James Chalmers credited Mrs. Anderson with the printing of ten of Defoe's writings published between 1706 and 1710. Of this number all save one, have been accredited to Defoe by several Defoe scholars including Dr. Henry Clinton Hutchins, the latest and one of the most reliable of Defoe bibliographers.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1945

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