Music Publishing in the British Isles from the Beginning until the Middle of the Nineteenth Century : a Dictionary of Engravers, Printers, Publishers and Music Sellers, with a Historical Introduction

Basil Blackwell, Oxford, second edition incorporating the Supplement, 1970. Cloth, paper spine-label, 8vo, 26 cm,. vii, 392 pp, facs. The present dictionary is ... an entirely new publication, based in the main upon original research by the authors over the many years of their long association together in the music section of the Department of Printed Books, British Museum. ...a number of the later less important London and provincial publishers may have been omitted. Apart from such omissions the dictionary does present as full a list as possible of the name: of every person and firm known to have been engaged in any way in the printing, engraving, publishing, selling and advertising of music in the British Isles up to about the middle of the nineteenth century, including some musical instrument makers and general booksellers who are known to have sold or issued music, little or much. The names of engravers of title-pages or frontispieces, otherwise not concerned with the production of the music, have been included in a few cases only, more particularly some of those before 1800. With a few exceptions, printers, publishers, etc. of treatises, literary works, magazines and periodicals containing some music have been omitted, and also as a rule, composers and others who only issued or sold their own works. The descriptions—publisher, printer, engraver, bookseller, etc.—have been assigned from evidence on the works, or in advertisements, etc.; but in many cases it is quite impossible to say whether a publisher was his own printer or engraver, to what extent the printing was put out to other individuals or firms, or whether the engraving was done on the publisher's or printer's premises by employees or journeyman craftsmen. Practical engravers, as distinct from publishers and printers, have been indicated whenever possible. The names are arranged in one alphabetical list, irrespective of the nature of the work of the person or firm (printer, publisher or music seller, etc.) or their place of business, followed by an index of firms under their respective towns, other than London, and a list of those firms who are recorded as having been engaged also in the manufacture or repair of musical instruments. Entries have been made for every named member of a firm as well as for the firm itself." from the introduction. Near Very Good in a dustwrapper with a darkened spine-panel.