English publisher who made his fortune by acquiring the copyright on Shakespeare's plays and milton's 'Paradise Lost'. Between 1684 and 1709 he published a series miscellanies edited by John Dryden, which have become known as either 'Drysen's Miscellanies' or 'Tonson's Miscellanies'. About 1700 he founded the literary Kit-Kat club and became it's secretary, and published works by Addison, Pope and Steele among other writers of the day.
English publisher who made his fortune by acquiring the copyright on Shakespeare's plays and milton's 'Paradise Lost'. Between 1684 and 1709 he published a series miscellanies edited by John Dryden, which have become known as either 'Drysen's Miscellanies' or 'Tonson's Miscellanies'. About 1700 he founded the literary Kit-Kat club and became it's secretary, and published works by Addison, Pope and Steele among other writers of the day.
Inscription
The volume of his life being finished, here is the end of Jacob Tonson. Weep, authors, and break your pens; your Tonson, effaced from the book, is no more; but print the last inscription on this last page of death, for fear that, delivered to the press of the grave, he, the Editor, should want a title. Here lies a bookseller, the leaf of his life being finished, awaiting a new edition, augmented and corrected.
(From ‘Curious Epitaphs’ by William Andrews 1883)
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