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Notes on lists of seventeenth century publications

Made available by Rosemary Moore in connection with her book The Light in their Consciences: Early Quakers in Britain 1646-1666 (Penn State University Press, 2000)

With thanks to Woodbrooke College and Quaker Heritage Press for the use of their web sites.

The software used for the lists is Microsoft Excel. The lists have been prepared from the data that I compiled for the Quaker and anti-Quaker publications of each year from 1652-3 to 1666. The Quaker list is in two parts because of its unwieldy length. Hard copy of lists of 1653-1659 Quaker and anti-Quaker publications is available in the libraries of Woodbrooke College, Birmingham, England and Friends House, London. There are also several copies in the United States, and for these, consult the Quaker colleges.

The notes were originally intended for my personal use. I have tried to remove all elliptical abbreviations, but some may remain. The lists may be freely copied, but please acknowledge any use made of them.

Comments on or corrections to these lists will be welcome.

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank Professor Hugh Barbour, who provided me with a copy of the data used to construct the statistical appendix, by David Runyan, in Early Quaker Works. I used this as the foundation for the Quaker lists, and it was invaluable. I should also like to thank Dr. Geoffrey F. Nuttall, who gave me an annotated list of the books answered by Fox in The Great Mistery, and who also identified for me a number of obscure anti-Quaker works.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

1. Reprints in the year of printing are not mentioned unless there is something special about them. Other reprints are noted after the title.

2. Duplicate and doubtful entries, and non-Quaker books in the Quaker lists, are italicised. I do not know if this formatting will always survive electronic transmission.

3. Square Brackets cannot be used to indicate doubtful entries, because they upset the computer sorting routines. Mild doubts concerning authors are ignored. For doubtful dates, please see notes on printing, below.

4. The list of anti-Quaker books was compiled from Joseph Smith's Bibliotheca Anti-Quakeriana, with a few additions from elsewhere. A few references may be to manuscript or oral sources. Books not seen by me have no entry under 'Class'. Cross-referencing is less complicated than with the Quaker books, so a tagging system was not used.

5. It has not been possible to have the lists independently checked. There are doubtless errors, for which I alone am responsible. I should be glad to be told about them. The 1660-1666 list is likely to be less complete and to contain more errors.

Notes On Some Column Headings

Wing There are a few books for which I could find no Wing entry. The third edition for letters A-E was used for the years 1660-1666. The location of some rare books is given using the Wing library code: for these, consult a copy of Wing's Short-title Catalogue.

Tag For sorting and extracting particular classes of books (Quaker lists only).

Tag Codes:

# Main entry for book with multiple authorship.
a Published anonymously
d Duplicate, or near duplicate, of book also published under another title.
e Erroneous Wing entry.
n Non-Quaker or anti-Quaker author, but included in Smith's Catalogue of Friends' Books
s In Smith's catalogue, but cannot be found. Lost book or erroneous entry. Included because one can waste a lot of time hunting for these books.
x Cross-reference for book with multiple authorship, or listed under different authors/ titles in different catalogues. See the first entry under 'Also by', or the note. Cross-references may not always be complete and up-dated.

Pr and Yr. Printer/publisher and date. See note above about Square Brackets. The year date is the best available, and Wing is usually followed in case of doubt. A 'y' after the printer code means that the date is the printer's. An 'n' after the printer code means no printer's date. 'npy' means no printer given, but there is a printer's date. 'npd' means neither printer nor date. All books published in London unless otherwise indicated.

Publisher Codes (Quaker lists):

A Printed for Author
C Calvert
L Lodovick Lloyd
M Mary Westwood
S Thomas Simmonds
RW Robert Wilson
WW William Warwick
Y Wayte of York

Other printer/publishers are noted separately. Printing and publishing information for the anti-Quaker books was usually given in the form 'Printed by so-and-so for such-a-one' This cannot be coded, as a large number of printers and publishers were used, so, for reasons of space, the second name only is given.

Internal Date. Writer's own date, or internal reference to a date.

Literary classification. Barbour and Roberts in Early Quaker Writings identified five main classes of Quaker writing, which were rearranged, with a number of subdivisions, in the statistical appendix. Early Quaker Writings covered Quakerism up to 1700, and in the early period now under consideration, a slightly different categorisation of the Quaker books proved more suitable. Publications are included under more than one heading where this was appropriate.

A Autobiographical
B To Baptists, and including a few to other religious groups.
C (Anti-Quaker list) Criticism of Quakers as the main purpose of the book, sometimes scurrilous, sometimes apposite and well-informed.
D Disputes between Quakers and others
E Epistle to Friends
N To national authorities, government or army
O Other, a few Quaker works that fit none of these categories, or in the anti-Quaker list, usually an official church pronouncement partly directed at Quakers.
Q Exposition of the Quaker faith
S About Quaker sufferings
T Testimonies to the dead
X (Anti-Quaker list) Nothing to do with Quakers, but Quakers objected to it.

G. M. no. and page (in the anti-Quaker list) The Great Mistery of the Great Whore. The order number for books answered, see separate list of Great Mistery books. Great Mistery references which were not to books (i.e., to an oral or manuscript source) have been omitted from the list of anti-Quaker books. Page numbers are to the 1831 (1992) edition.