Abstract
This chapter examines the first appropriation, more or less verbatim, of Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises (1683) and John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar (1755) by Philip Luckombe, whose manual A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing (1770) appeared 15 years after Smith’s own. The objectives of this chapter are twofold. The first is to determine the impact of Luckombe’s textual appropriation of Moxon’s and Smith’s manuals on the evolution of editorial style through a comparative textual analysis of these three manuals. The second is to reflect on the implications of such appropriation in early modern print culture in terms of plagiarism and copyright. Luckombe demonstrated unquestionably a determined vision—he sought to provide instruction to the print trade through a modern Britanno-centric lens. At times Luckombe succeeded; however, his personal contribution to editorial style was virtually non-existent and his adaptation of Smith’s text, which accounted for the majority of his editorial instruction, appeared inconsistent and indifferent to Smith’s original intent.
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Notes
- 1.
See Shaw (1982, 327).
- 2.
See also Rose (1993, 25).
- 3.
See also Rose (2010, 121).
- 4.
Taylor also states on the same page: ‘The first sometimes spoils, the latter often improves upon the original.’ The eighteenth-century practice of improving is confirmed by Freeborn (1998, 376): ‘During the eighteenth century many pamphlets, articles and grammar books were published on the topic of correcting, improving and, if possible, fixing the language in a perfected form’.
- 5.
Note that Moore Howard (1999, 68) disagrees: ‘In the modern textual economy, originality marks “true” authorship, derivative authorship must acknowledge its sources; and derivative authorship using unacknowledged sources is socially transgressive. From its emergence in the seventeenth century until the postmodern era of the late twentieth century, this economy has steadily gained credence. The writer is no longer a pygmy obscured by giants’.
- 6.
See also Rose (1993, 12).
- 7.
See also Feather (1994, 44).
- 8.
According to Feather , the parliament designed this legislative impermanence to ensure against the monarch from ‘[governing] for long periods without a parliament’.
- 9.
See also, McKenzie (2002, 118).
- 10.
See also Kroeg (2004, 127).
- 11.
The ‘large Geographical Dictionary’ is most probably The Beauties of England: Giving a Descriptive View of the Chief Villages, Market-Towns, and Cities; Antiquities, Parks, Plantations, Scenes, And Situations, In England and Wales fifth edn. 2 vols, published in London for L. Davis and C. Reymers in 1757.
- 12.
Philip Luckombe . 1800. The Tablet of Memory; Shewing Every Memorable Event in History, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1800. Classed Under Distinct Heads, with Their Dates. Comprehending An Epitome Of English History, With An Exact Chronology Of Painters, Eminent Men, &c. To Which Are Annexed, Several Useful Lists. The Tenth Edition. London: Printed by J. Crowder, Warwick-Square, for G. G. and J. Robinson.
- 13.
Reed ’s footnote accompanying this observation reads: ‘After commending Caslon and Jackson, [Luckombe ] says: “As to the productions of other Founderies we shall be silent, and leave them to sound forth their own good qualifications, which by an examiner are not found to exist” (p. 230)’.
- 14.
See also Bush Jones (1977, 106–7).
- 15.
For this example, Smith utilised italics for emphasis; generally the names were typeset with an initial capital in roman.
- 16.
Mitchell (1983, 364) similarly observes this.
- 17.
Personally, neither the em dash nor the colon is ideal; a semicolon makes more sense.
- 18.
The meaning would have been better served if the em dash had been retained.
- 19.
See also McKerrow (1913, 295).
- 20.
However, Luckombe ’s (1770, 291–2) consistent presentation of proper names for the Smith text is not emulated of the first pages of the Moxon section, entitled ‘THE PRINTING PRESS’, where ‘Willem Jansen Blaew’, ‘Tycho Brahe’ are typeset in small capitals.
- 21.
Smith (1755, 59) focuses only on Latin and French here because they are ‘the principal bye-languages which prove beneficial to our English Presses’.
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Hargrave, J. (2019). The First Appropriation of Editorial Style: Philip Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing . In: The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0_6
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