The Publisher
Although the name of the printer which appeared on the first and last pages of the book is the “Conference Office,” the full title of the printer was the “Wesleyan Conference Office.” The Wesleyan Conference office published books on John Wesley, Methodism, missionary voyages, and hymns. OCLC/WorldCat lists nine hundred and ten entries under “Printer: Wesleyan Conference Office” but many of these entries are editions of the same book. Their first book, printed in 1745, was an edition of John Wesley’s An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason. The book billed itself as a “defense of Methodism, describing the evils of the times in society and the church.”
The Wesleyan Conference office did not print books larger than the octavo format; they were a specialized printer interested in printing small, cheap books on Methodism for sale in Methodist churches and bookstores. Despite the fact that these books were certainly brought on missions to help convert natives, the Wesleyan Conference office published exclusively in English. George Whitfield, listed as the book’s agent, was a minister in the Church of England and one of the leaders of the Methodist movement. John Wesleyan considered Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers, the subject of the book, to be the ideal Methodist woman: not only did she embody Methodist morals, she also engaged in the avid promotion of Methodism at the side of her husband, a Wesleyan itinerant.
Read more about this topic: The Character And Death Of Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers
Famous quotes containing the word publisher:
“No publisher should ever express an opinion on the value of what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary critic to decide.... I can quite understand how any ordinary critic would be strongly prejudiced against a work that was accompanied by a premature and unnecessary panegyric from the publisher. A publisher is simply a useful middle-man. It is not for him to anticipate the verdict of criticism.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)