Minor Lives : A Collection of Biographies. Annotated and with an Introduction on John Nichols and the Antiquarian and Anecdotal Movements of the Late Eighteenth Century

Many late eighteenth-century British writers and artists were antiquarians and anecdotalists, the former preserving the past, the latter the memory of their contemporaries. And the man who produced more biographical data on the artists of his time than did all his contemporaries combined, including Boswell and Johnson, was John Nichols (1745–1826), printer, editor, and author. As one of the distinguished printers of his day, he issued some of the most important books. He was probably even better known, however, as Sylvanus Urban, editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine. He also edited over 150 volumes of other writers’ works—including Richard Steele and Jonathan Swift—and wrote and published more than forty books of his own. In the present volume Edward Hart has collected twenty-eight of Nichols’ biographies, with ten portraits of their subjects. He has augmented the basic sketches by gathering all the pertinent information scattered throughout Nichols’ other writings. Hart’s introductions and annotations, including Nichols’ original notes, relate the biographies to each other and to the life, thought, and manners of the day. Contents Illustrations Preface Introduction Part I. Antiquarians Isaac Reed Richard Farmer George Steevens William Cole Richard Gough Browne Willis Samuel Pegge the Elder Joseph Warton and Thomas Warton the Younger John Nichols Part II. Booksellers and Printers John Dunton Bernard Lintot David Henry Thomas Davies James Dodsley Thomas Longman Thomas Payne Peter Elmsly Thomas Cadell Andrew Millar William Strahan Joseph Johnson Part III. Illustrators and Designers Isaac Basire and the Three James Basires John Baskerville William Caslon (With Accompanying Brief Memoirs of THOMAS COTTRELL, JOSEPH JACKSON, and VINCENT FIGGINS) Part IV. Curate, Scholar, Grub, Poet John Jones Thomas Tyrwhitt Samuel Boyse John Hughes Index