SOURCE: Clapp, Sarah Lewis Carol. “Foreword.” In Jacob Tonson in Ten Letters by and About Him, pp. 4-8. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1948.

In the following excerpt, Clapp discusses the style and content of Tonson's letters, which she says provide insights into the man's character.

“To entertain you I will show you … a phenomenon worth seeing and hearing, Old Jacob Tonson, who is the perfect image and likeness of Bayle's Dictionary;¹ so full of matter, secret history, and wit and spirit, at almost four-score.” Thus wrote Pope in 1731 to Lord Oxford. Imitating Pope, this pamphlet makes and hopes in some measure to fulfil the same promise, using a small group of letters by and about Jacob Tonson senior, all of them written during the last eight years of his life, and variously reflecting his character and his career as an eminent London bookseller.

The four letters about...