SOURCE: Barnard, John. “The Large- and Small-Paper Copies of Dryden's The Works of Virgil (1697): Jacob Tonson's Investment and Profits and the Example of Paradise Lost (1688).” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 92, no. 3 (September 1998): 259-71.

In the following essay, Barnard discusses Tonson's publication of Dryden's The Works of Virgil and considers the profits he made from this and other similar projects.

The existence of large and small copies of the first folio edition of Dryden's The Works of Virgil published by Jacob Tonson in 1697 is well established. Hugh Macdonald reported seeing copies of what he called the “Ordinary” small-paper copies measuring 14 by 8[frac78] inches, while some of the large-paper copies measure 17[frac12] by 10[frac78] inches, others 16[frac34] by 10[frac78].¹ However, there is no mention at all of the small-paper copies in the contract for the subscription translation that Dryden and Tonson signed on 15 June 1694. This is surprising...