Restoration Playbooks and Receivers' Stamps: James Magnes, Richard Bentley, and 'the Post-Office in Russel-street in Covent-Garden'

This article examines the surprisingly prevalent incidence of contemporary handstamps impressed upon the final leaf of Restoration playbooks. These are all circular and contain either individual letters or are bisected and contain a combination of letters and numerals. As they are demonstrably not p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Seventeenth century Vol. 39; no. 2; pp. 281 - 289
Main Authors Koch, Emma, McInnis, David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Durham Routledge 03.03.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Bentley, Richard (1662-1742)
book history
James Magnes
letter receiver stamps
Magnes, James
Postal & delivery services
Publishing
Restoration period
Restoration playbooks
Richard Bentley
Stamps
Theater
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Summary:This article examines the surprisingly prevalent incidence of contemporary handstamps impressed upon the final leaf of Restoration playbooks. These are all circular and contain either individual letters or are bisected and contain a combination of letters and numerals. As they are demonstrably not part of the printing process, they have not attracted the attention of textual editors; but as this article shows, neither are they markers of ownership that would interest scholars researching provenance. We identify the marks as being the stamps of letter receivers; in particular, receivers (James Magnes and Richard Bentley) who were also stationers involved in the publishing of the plays we examined. The presence of these stamps suggests that Magnes and Bentley served not only as publishers and booksellers, but as distributors of the playbooks they produced. The presence of these stamps thus has implications for the distribution of Restoration playbooks through the English postal system.
ISSN:0268-117X
2050-4616
DOI:10.1080/0268117X.2024.2317199