![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I find biographies rather dull. This book is a quite long look at a famous printer/publisher of the 17th century. He started as a dancer, ran a theatre in Ireland, lived through the civil wars, and curried favour with the Restoration, he printed translations of the classics, Virgil, Homer, Aesop and the Bible, and went on to produce a series of atlas for countries around the world. Without a doubt an interesting character, living in interesting times, but 180 page book about him becomes quite tedious and dull half way through. I’m sure there will be plenty of useful information to be gleaned for my Book of the Month, but I can’t think why anyone else would really be interested in reading this.
11 – success as a dancer (danced before the king), dance instructor, and opened a theatre in Ireland before turning to publishing in his 50s (in the 50s as well)
12 – “He paid constant attention to obtaining fine paper, to using clear and harmonious type faces and to the employment of wide margins and running head…he used expert artists and engravers.” Turned to prose after the great fire (1666)
27 - returned to London and married a widow, he was around 50,
28 – “It was presumably she whor brought to her husband the capital he has so sorely lecked. He used that to produce increasingly beautiful and expensive boos, to keep the sale of these in his own hands, and finally to print the volumen in his own shop”.
Started publishing in 49 with a translation of Virgil.
Became famous with translations of the illiad
45 sold through subscriptions and standing lotteries
44 “Copies of Ogilby’s bible which became among the most expensive of English books in the 17th century”
47 Virgil, Aesop, Homer and the Bible before in 1670s starting his series of atlases.
Restoration – theatre
*In England it was trade that was important to the growth of empire – not missions – so this was the place for books about China * (my thought)
82 – Petition dated 20 March 1666/67 a royal warrant for copyright to “the embassy of the Netherlands east india company to the emperor of china with sculps.”
83 – In 1666 fire petitioned the King stating he had lost £3000 worth of book stock. And he petitioned to be allowed to import French paper tax free. (which according to author was presumably granted).
86- procedures of the book lottery, (China valued at £4 here) – these lotteries earned him back the losses from the fire
88- “among the books included in the 1668 lottery had been the volume “An embassy from New Batavia, to the Emperor of China”. It was the successful reception accorded this book that, together with other considerations, determined Ogilby, “to carry on in the same way herafeter, the whole business of my pen”. That decision, in which he preservered, led to his prospectus for a standing lotter of all his works, designed to assist in the production of Britannica.”
90-91 following success of (1st ed) Embassy to China allowed him to set up his own printing shop.
95 – “John Ogilby published seven large folios on foreign lands (often called atlases) between 1669 and 1673. His turning from classical verse to descriptive prose was a deliberate move, inspired in part by the success of his first venture (on China), and in part because he sensed the growing interest among Englishmen in the vast and strange areas now becoming more accessible to trade and even to conquest.”
96- These were the 3 volumes on China (1669, 1671 1673), “folios printed on fine paper, with large clear print, heavily illustrated with figures in strange costumes and postures and even containing some maps, which have an orginial charm of their own.”
** 96 -“He has artists copying illustrations from the books he was using. Sometimes an English title was added to a print; at other times the original legend was erased and English words inserted. Small changes were often made also in the illustrations and the maps. As with the “author” so with the artist. Wenceslaus Hollar and other artists signed plates that they had copied from Continental editions. Such procedure was standard for the time, of course.”
96 – Furthermore the transltated atlases that Ogilby produced were intelligible to Englishmen as well as useful. Hence the translations sold in quanities as the original would never have done. In addition to making a solid business profit, Ogilby was educating Englishmen about a variety of lands.
The Chinese volume 1669 was the first, and “attained considerable success”
98 the account of Father adams against the dutch was included as England went to war with Holland 3 times during the later half of the century (here nationalism had overtaken the religious debates of a century earlier)
101- on the Japanese vol. 102 on the African vol.
116 – 2nd vol on China –Atlas Chinensis published in 1671, mostly on Dutch govt. in Batavia and dutch attempts to open trade. Included treaties and lists of gifts exchanged. Thought perhaps done by Morgan while Ogilby did America.
1673 – reissue of embassy – 2nd ed. On larger folio leaves, changes in the placing of illustrations, punctuation and spelling and in the use of endpieces. (but on the whole reprinting.
America
Britania, no European vol. was published.
140-141Died 4 September in 1676, buried in st brides but bombing of 1940 has gotten rid of his tomb.
145- became known for cricisism of his translations by Dryden.
11 – success as a dancer (danced before the king), dance instructor, and opened a theatre in Ireland before turning to publishing in his 50s (in the 50s as well)
12 – “He paid constant attention to obtaining fine paper, to using clear and harmonious type faces and to the employment of wide margins and running head…he used expert artists and engravers.” Turned to prose after the great fire (1666)
27 - returned to London and married a widow, he was around 50,
28 – “It was presumably she whor brought to her husband the capital he has so sorely lecked. He used that to produce increasingly beautiful and expensive boos, to keep the sale of these in his own hands, and finally to print the volumen in his own shop”.
Started publishing in 49 with a translation of Virgil.
Became famous with translations of the illiad
45 sold through subscriptions and standing lotteries
44 “Copies of Ogilby’s bible which became among the most expensive of English books in the 17th century”
47 Virgil, Aesop, Homer and the Bible before in 1670s starting his series of atlases.
Restoration – theatre
*In England it was trade that was important to the growth of empire – not missions – so this was the place for books about China * (my thought)
82 – Petition dated 20 March 1666/67 a royal warrant for copyright to “the embassy of the Netherlands east india company to the emperor of china with sculps.”
83 – In 1666 fire petitioned the King stating he had lost £3000 worth of book stock. And he petitioned to be allowed to import French paper tax free. (which according to author was presumably granted).
86- procedures of the book lottery, (China valued at £4 here) – these lotteries earned him back the losses from the fire
88- “among the books included in the 1668 lottery had been the volume “An embassy from New Batavia, to the Emperor of China”. It was the successful reception accorded this book that, together with other considerations, determined Ogilby, “to carry on in the same way herafeter, the whole business of my pen”. That decision, in which he preservered, led to his prospectus for a standing lotter of all his works, designed to assist in the production of Britannica.”
90-91 following success of (1st ed) Embassy to China allowed him to set up his own printing shop.
95 – “John Ogilby published seven large folios on foreign lands (often called atlases) between 1669 and 1673. His turning from classical verse to descriptive prose was a deliberate move, inspired in part by the success of his first venture (on China), and in part because he sensed the growing interest among Englishmen in the vast and strange areas now becoming more accessible to trade and even to conquest.”
96- These were the 3 volumes on China (1669, 1671 1673), “folios printed on fine paper, with large clear print, heavily illustrated with figures in strange costumes and postures and even containing some maps, which have an orginial charm of their own.”
** 96 -“He has artists copying illustrations from the books he was using. Sometimes an English title was added to a print; at other times the original legend was erased and English words inserted. Small changes were often made also in the illustrations and the maps. As with the “author” so with the artist. Wenceslaus Hollar and other artists signed plates that they had copied from Continental editions. Such procedure was standard for the time, of course.”
96 – Furthermore the transltated atlases that Ogilby produced were intelligible to Englishmen as well as useful. Hence the translations sold in quanities as the original would never have done. In addition to making a solid business profit, Ogilby was educating Englishmen about a variety of lands.
The Chinese volume 1669 was the first, and “attained considerable success”
98 the account of Father adams against the dutch was included as England went to war with Holland 3 times during the later half of the century (here nationalism had overtaken the religious debates of a century earlier)
101- on the Japanese vol. 102 on the African vol.
116 – 2nd vol on China –Atlas Chinensis published in 1671, mostly on Dutch govt. in Batavia and dutch attempts to open trade. Included treaties and lists of gifts exchanged. Thought perhaps done by Morgan while Ogilby did America.
1673 – reissue of embassy – 2nd ed. On larger folio leaves, changes in the placing of illustrations, punctuation and spelling and in the use of endpieces. (but on the whole reprinting.
America
Britania, no European vol. was published.
140-141Died 4 September in 1676, buried in st brides but bombing of 1940 has gotten rid of his tomb.
145- became known for cricisism of his translations by Dryden.