Nicholas Okes - Publishing

Publishing

Like most printers of his historical period, Okes concentrated on printing, and left publishing decisions to the booksellers who commissioned jobs from him. And yet, again like most printers of the era, Okes did a limited amount of publishing himself. (Booksellers and printers were all members of the Stationers Company, and could publish books and other works; but the practicalities of the retail book business made booksellers the logical and primary publishers.) Okes's title pages identify his business as "near Holborn Bridge" and "in Foster Lane."

Okes published the first quartos of Heywood's The Silver Age (1613) and his The Iron Age, Parts 1 and 2 (1632), and the first and second quarto of Heywood's The Four Prentices of London (1615, 1632). He published some of Heywood's non-dramatic prose, including his important An Apology for Actors (1612); in that volume, Heywood included an address "to his approved good friend, Nicholas Okes," that praises the printer's "care and workmanship" and calls him "careful and industrious" and "serious and laborious."

Okes also published the texts of some of the city entertainments common in the era, including several written by Thomas Middleton when he was City Chronologer of London, plus others by John Webster and Anthony Munday.

As with his printing, Okes published non-dramatic works as well as plays. One example is Samuel Daniel's The Collection of the History of England (1618); another is Robert Chamberlain's A New Book of Mistakes (1637). He published Anthony Munday's translation of Amadis de Gaul (1618–19), one of the chivalric romances that were enormously popular in the era. Okes published A Short Treatise on Magnetical Bodies and Motions (1613) by Mark Ridley, a follower of William Gilbert, and John Napier's A Description of the Admirable Table of Logarithms (1616).

Printers who published usually needed a retail outlet for their wares. The title page of Okes's edition of The Silver Age states that the book would be sold by Benjamin Lightfoote. Okes's edition of Richard Jobson's The Golden Trade (1623) was sold by Nicholas Bourne; his edition of Sir Thomas Overbury's translation of Ovid (1620) was sold by John Wells.