September 2015

SUBSCRIPTION LISTS in EARLY MODERN PRINT CULTURE

Katherine Parker
2014-2015 John R. Bockstoce Fellow

A common feature of eighteenth century printed books, especially British imprints, were subscription lists. (1) Such lists are attractive to scholars for they seem to allow us to view the individuals involved in early modern print culture. However, as sources these lists are fraught with limitations. At the John Carter Brown Library I analyzed two subscription lists in two accounts of the 1740-44 Anson circumnavigation. Their characteristics, differences, and similarities offer insight into how authors attempt to craft their audience and establish credibility, as well as how readers may attempt to associate themselves with some publications to personify a certain type of learned citizen.

First, it is necessary to lay out what subscription lists can and cannot tell scholars. Just because one subscribes to a print project does not mean that one ever will read, or even intended to read, the work. Subscription lists do not offer a complete picture of the readership of a certain book, rather they offer a glimpse into those who thought a particular project was significant enough to patronize. They show relative purchasing power, not reading practices. Scholars can only guess at the motives that individuals might have had for subscribing, but it is still useful to analyze the lists for what they can tell us about who thought it worthwhile to participate in book production, as well as to see the wider community it took to bring a book through printing to public consumption. Subscription lists are acts of social definition, as Reid points out, but they are also an act of social advertisement. Those who gave their support often had some say in what information about themselves to include, thus framing their presentation in print.

As an example of what we can learn, let us compare two subscription lists. Both tell the story of the Anson expedition. In 1740, Commodore George Anson sailed from England with orders to lead a squadron of six ships around Cape Horn to ‘annoy and distress the Spaniards, either at sea or land, to the utmost of your power.’ Anson would do just that, looting along the Spanish coast and causing a wave of panic among colonial officials. However, he lost 1,400 of his 1,900 men, primarily to scurvy, as well as five of his six vessels. His reputation was saved when he took the Acapulco treasure galleon in 1743.

It took four years for Anson to compile his papers and direct the publication of the book, which was written by his ship’s chaplain, Richard Walter, and military engineer and Fellow of the Royal Society, Benjamin Robins. In the time it took Anson and his collaborators to create their opus, no less than eight other accounts of the voyage became commercially available. The most detailed of the Anson accounts released soon after the squadron’s return was by Pascoe Thomas, who had been employed on the voyage to teach mathematics. His account, A True and Impartial Journal of a Voyage to the South-Seas and Round the Globe appeared in 1745. Little is known about Pascoe Thomas beyond what he discloses in his account, viz. that he is a mathematics teacher. His stated goal is to instruct the common man, not to entertain, a usual claim in travel accounts of the time but one seldom adhered to so severely and repeated so often as in Thomas’ detailed volume.

At the beginning of his account, Thomas includes a list of 335 names. Unusually, there is no listed member of the peerage. This could indicate that there was little interest on the part of elites, but more probably shows the limitations of the math instructor’s, or his publisher’s, social network. Only 24.5% chose to list an occupation, perhaps indicating that more information was not requested. However, 34 of the 82 who listed a job were involved in maritime employment, including ship-carpenters, shipwrights, mariners, victuallers, and surgeons at sea. One can assume that many of those who did not list an occupation were also involved in maritime affairs. Typical of the period, there are only two female subscribers, revealing the purchasing power of females more than indicating a lack of interest in geography and voyages.

Of most interest is the large percentage that hail from Gosport, 17.6% of the total. When the nearby Portsmouth subscribers are added in, they make up 20.6% of the total, a surprising amount for a book trade so centered in London. Indeed, the majority who chose to identify are not from the London area, although the printers were. Thus we see that Thomas and/or his printer was able to reach out to a provincial, maritime community to support his book. Perhaps Thomas himself was from the Gosport/Portsmouth area, or maybe community leaders like Gosport subscribers James Creighton, Attorney; James Cummins, merchant; Banister Hunt, merchant; William Elleston, attorney; or William Leffat, master of the free school, influenced their own local networks to support the project. This relatively educated yet not elite audience may have been just the type of reader that Thomas intimated he wanted, making the subscription list an extension of his writing philosophy of trite instruction.

A final detail of note is the number of former Anson squadron crew members who are listed. Nine identify as having lately been in one of the squadron’s ships, three of which hail from Gosport. This is a large number considering that only 400 men survived from all six ships, of which many would have not been literate and others would not have remained on land to subscribe. A certain comradery seems to have existed between the men, or at the very least they knew enough about each other to get in touch. A standout on the list is a “William Bulkeley,” “Late Carpenter of the Wager.” John Bulkeley, gunner on the another ship in Anson’s squadron, wrote a widely-publicized account of his and carpenter John Cummins’ experiences two years before. The mis-printing of his name and position puts the subscription list itself under suspicion. Were certain names added just to pad the list, using the lingering fame of the circumnavigators and mutineers to gain more subscribers and customers? Or did someone try to subscribe using the mistaken name, aspiring to identify with the now-famous few who survived? As usual, the list raises as many questions as it answers, but at the very least it seems that Thomas was able to attract at least some subscribers that fulfilled his profile for desired readers.

Compare Thomas’ subscribers with those of the official account, A Voyage Round the World, released in 1748. The account was a bestseller, going through four editions in its first year and in its fifteenth edition by 1776. A subscription list of 1,816 entries with 1,823 names and institutions supports the assertion of a broad general interest in the voyage, as subscribers range from the Duke of Argyle to various army officers to Mrs. Rebecca and Elizabeth Houblon. Of these, roughly 950 include titles, professions, or honorifics. Trades and occupations are absent from this list, with the only professions included being members of the clergy, barristers, and esquires. 7.71% of the subscribers include their degree as part of their identification. 3.19% are women, a still small percentage but a higher number than in other subscription lists, most likely due to the higher socio-economic status of many of the women subscribers and of the list in general. Schools and companies also subscribed, with the East Inida Company signed up for 31 copies and nine Cambridge colleges included. Interestingly, no Oxford colleges subscribed, highlighting that subscription lists are better indicators of specific sub-sections of the social terrain of reading than examples of the breadth of British reading society at large. 

The subscription list to the first edition portrays a different demographic from Pascoe Thomas’ provincial maritime subscribers. Location is not listed unless attached to title, so a geographic comparison is not possible. However, the network and connections of Anson and his publishers is clearly of a more elite nature than Thomas was able to manage. Anson was a national hero upon his return and already connected to the peerage through family and naval patronage networks. His socio-economic advantage shows in the subscription list, but so does his naval background. By 1748, Anson was serving as an Admiralty Commissioner and he would be Lord High Admiral from 1748 until his death in 1762. Nearly 100 naval officers are subscribers, with many voyage survivors included. However, these men do not advertise their association with the voyage as the sailors on Thomas’ list did. Thus, the prominence of the association with the voyage in Thomas’ list can be seen as a ploy to attract buyers; their presence legitimizes the account to audiences. Inclusion on the Anson list is more aspirational; it is a place to see and be seen, and it is more important as a list showing one’s links to Anson than an attempt to profit from the voyage itself.

From this brief comparison, it is clear that subscription lists can fulfill different goals depending on the socio-economic background and reputation of the associated author, as well as the backgrounds of those who chose to subscribe. The lists can also point to possible social networks involved with the print industry in London and beyond. However, the conditional language used throughout this post also points to the provisional nature of most conclusions that can be drawn from subscription lists. They are valuable, yet incomplete, glimpses into past book-buying practices. They lead to many queries and few firm conclusions, as do so many historical sources, yet this does not mean that researchers should not attempt to uncover the insights concealed in the neat columns of names.


1.) Whereas subscriptions schemes existed across Europe, they were particularly popular in England. .” James Raven, “New reading histories, print culture and the identification of change: the case of Eighteenth-century England,” Social History 23, no. 3 (1998): 277. Pre-1700, less than 100 books were published by subscription. There were 40 in the first decade of eighteenth century, 91 in the second decade, 270 in the third; the average thereafter that was 250 per decade. From the 1720s, only half of proposals became books. Hugh Reid, The Nature and Uses of Eighteenth-Century Subscription Lists (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2010), 15-16, 37.

2.) Charles W. J. Withers, Geography, Enlightenment and the Book: Authorship and Audience in Mungo Park’s African Texts,” in Geographies of the Book, eds. Miles Ogborn and Charles W. J. Withers (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2010), 210.

3.) Reid, The Nature and Uses of Eighteenth-Century Subscription Lists, 4-5.

4.) While this is true in large part, I assume that some did not submit their information personally or had it drafted for them. Be that as it may, someone was still managing the presentation of those individuals, tailoring the so as to appear a certain way in print. 

5.) ‘Instructions to Commodore Anson, 1740,’ quoted in Glyndwr Williams, ed., Documents Relating to Anson’s Voyage Round the World 1740-1744 (London: Naval Records Society, 1967), document 9.

6.) For more on the impact of Anson on Spanish colonial subjects see Guadalupe Pinzón Ríos, ‘Defensa del Pacífico Novohispano ante la presencia de George Anson,’ EHN 38 (2008): 63-86.

7.) John Bulkeley and John Cummins, Voyage to the South Seas in His Majesty's ship the Wager in the years 1740-1741, by John Bulkeley and John Cummins, gunner and carpenter of the Wager (London: Printed for Jacob Robinson, 1743).

8.) Richard Walter, Voyage round the World…(London: John Knapton, 1748).

9.) With one brief interlude for a return to active duty in 1758.