Jacob Tonson

Tonson, Jacob (tŏnˈsən) [key], 1656?–1736, English publisher. He and his brother Richard purchased the publication rights to Milton's Paradise Lost, a transaction later claimed as the firm's most profitable. With John Dryden he published a series of miscellany volumes (6 vol., 1684–1709), edited by Dryden and often referred to as Dryden's miscellany or Tonson's miscellany. Tonson was secretary of the Kit-Cat Club, a literary club which he founded c.1700, and was publisher of works by Addison, Steele, and Pope, among others.

See study by K. M. Lynch (1971).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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