Tonson

Tonson, a family of London booksellers in the first half of the 18th century. Its founder, Jacob Tonson, the son of a barber-surgeon, was born in 1656, apprenticed in 1670, and commenced business early in 1678 with a capital of £100. Before 1679 he published some plays of Otway and Tate, and as early as 1681 he had secured the patronage of Dryden. In 1700 he published Dryden's Fables, and soon after bought a country-house near the village of Barnes, where as secretary he entertained for many years the members of the famous Kit-Cat Club (q.v.). Tonson was also the first to open Shakespeare to the reading public by producing Rowe's octavo edition in 1709. After 1706 he published some of Pope's works. Tonson had his brother in partnership, and afterwards his nephew, and on his death at Ledbury, April 2, 1736, was succeeded by his grand-nephew, Jacob Tonson the third, who died in 1767. See Charles Knight's Shadows of the Old Booksellers (1865).