Millar [Miller] Ritchie -- Disciple of Baskerville

Notes on Research in Progress

Above: Portrait of Miller [sic] Ritchie in Bigmore & Wyman v.2, p.260 (re-used from Hansard's Typographia)

Major Topics:

Books Printed--Bibliographical Recs

Booksellers working with Ritchie

Citations to printed secondary works

zDocuments mentioning

zMiscellaneous Notes (also has stuff on what to use for a longer talk)

Might also want to quote the 1824(?) anon review on quality of printing: Review of Johnson's Typographia

Notes:

Portrait in B&W v.2, p.260 (from Hansard's Typographia) {see V2, V3]

X Source to Find: Need to chk T.F. Dibdin: citation to Dibdin II, 172 (Livy) (?mentions Pliny 1790 and ?Goldsmith 1792)
Source to Find: ? C Stower, Printers Grammar (doubt it);
Source to Find: Johnson Typographia (doubt it)
Source to Find: Doubt he's mentioned in Jacobi, Southward
Check any additional works on Bulmer and Edm Fry (e.g., Fry, Pantographia).
Check index to JPHS
X Check DNB? other names (booksellers)

Bibliography ⁄ Checklist notes

Current status: Books Printed--Bibliographical Recs

-set of classics in 8vo [these were turned over to bookseller Thomas Payne, per Timperley]

-Quarto Bible, 1796 2v.

-Memoirs of Count of Grammont. 4to.

(Also, did he print for poets like Wordworth?; do they mention him? I doubt. WW used Edw Moxon late in life)

[Doubt he's mentioned in Blumenthal]

Biographical Notes

(PR Thought: was he named after the printer [Andrew Millar???]

-Terry Belanger Sep-09-2005 doesn't think so; it's a common name in SCO.

Hansard, Typographia 1825 says he came from Scotland, but doesn't say where.

Hmm: When he split with Sammells, he stopped doing religious works. See Imprints.

Bigger issues to mention:

-printing as business; fine printing is really a very, very small part of printing generally (just as book printing is not a large component of printing as newspaper and printed advertising start to dominate the trade)

-unusualness of fine printers making money from their ventures unless they tap into individuals or groups that essentially underwrite (some printers with Grolier; Clarke & Way with Frick; Spiral press and Morgan Library; Stinehour and most museums and libraries); seems that Henry Homer (1789 -1794 Classics Reprints edited by Homer) were commissioned and helped.

-Successors: (quoting Timperley): [he] "was succeeded by Bulmer; Bensley and McCreery followed, and from the presses of those gentlemen have issued some of the finest specimens of typography which this or any other country has produced."