Joseph Johnson (publisher)

Joseph Johnson was an influential 18th-century London bookseller and publisher. He is best known for publishing the works of radical thinkers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Thomas Malthus, Erasmus Darwin and Joel Barlow. Johnson also served as a postal clerk, literary editor, social psychiatrist, and packager.

About Joseph Johnson (publisher) in brief

Joseph Johnson was an influential 18th-century London bookseller and publisher. His publications covered a wide variety of genres and a broad spectrum of opinions on important issues. Johnson is best known for publishing the works of radical thinkers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Thomas Malthus, Erasmus Darwin and Joel Barlow. In the 1790s, Johnson aligned himself with the supporters of the French Revolution, and published an increasing number of political pamphlets. In 1799, he was indicted on charges of seditious libel for publishing a pamphlet by the Unitarian minister Gilbert Wakefield. Johnson’s friend John Aikin eulogized him as \”the father of the booktrade\”. He has also been called \”the most important publisher in England from 1770 until 1810\” for his appreciation and promotion of young writers, his emphasis on publishing inexpensive works directed at a growing middle-class readership, and his cultivation and advocacy of women writers at a time when they were viewed with skepticism. The last decade of his career, Johnson did not seek out many new writers; however, he remained successful by publishing the collected works of authors such as William Shakespeare. He also published important works in medicine and children’s literature as well as the popular poetry of William Cowper and Erasmos Darwin. Johnson also served as a postal clerk, literary editor, social psychiatrist, and packager, and became a successful bookseller, publisher, and bank clerk. He died in London in 1810 and is survived by his wife, Mary, and their three children, all of whom are now in their 80s and 90s.

He is buried at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He was the second son of Rebecca Turner Johnson and John Johnson, a Baptist yeoman who lived in Everton, Liverpool. His mother’s relatives were prominent Baptist ministers and his father was a deacon. The two characteristics of his home – Dissent and commercialism – remained central elements in Johnson’s character throughout his life. Johnson was apprenticed to a bookseller who specialized in publishing religious tracts. He struggled to establish himself, moving his shop several times within one year. He published several works together later in their careers, which suggests that the two remained on friendly terms after Johnson started his own business. Johnson continued to sell these profitable books until the end of the 17 90s, but as a religious Dissenter, he also published more works to improve society. However, as a publisher Johnson attended to the actual selling and distributing of books, rather than the actual public, as scholar Leslie Chard explains: Johnson fed the public, but at the least he fed them at the most he housed them. He sold patent medicine, incongruously but typically, but typically patent medicine was probably most probably his most occupied time of his time. Johnson published works relating to medicine, although as a more successful publisher he also sold more works, such as books on medicine.

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