John Nichols (printer)
| John Nichols | |
|---|---|
John Nichols
|
|
| Born |
2 February 1745 Islington, London |
| Died | 26 November 1826 (aged 81) |
| Occupation | printer; antiquary |
| Nationality | British |
| Genre | history |
| Notable works |
Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century; History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester |
John Nichols (2 February 1745 – 26 November 1826) was an English printer, author and antiquary. He is remembered as an influential editor of the Gentleman's Magazine for nearly 40 years; author of a monumental county history of Leicestershire; author of two compendia of biographical material relating to his literary contemporaries; and as one of the agents behind the first complete publication of Domesday Book in 1783.
He was born in Islington, London to Edward Nichols and Anne Wilmot. On 22 June 1766 he married Anne, daughter of William Cradock. Anne bore him three children: Anne (1767), Sarah (1769), and William Bowyer (born 1775 and died a year later). His wife Anne also died in 1776. Nichols was married a second time in 1778, to Martha Green who bore him eight children. Nichols was taken for training by "the learned printer", William Bowyer the Younger in early 1757. Nichols was formally apprenticed in February 1759 by Bowyer, whom he eventually succeeded. On the death of his friend and master in 1777 he published a brief memoir, which afterwards grew into the Anecdotes of William Bowyer and his Literary Friends (1782).
In 1788, he became editor of the Gentleman's Magazine and remained so till his death. In that periodical, and in his numerous volumes of Anecdotes and Illustrations, he made numerous contributions to literary biography. As his materials accumulated he compiled a sort of anecdotal literary history of the century, based on a large collection of letters. The Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1812–15, nine volumes), into which the original work was expanded, forms only a small part of Nichols's production.
Considered one of his most important works, Nichols's monumental History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, was the most ambitious of the antiquarian county histories (extremely long, but the quality of the content is very variable), a massive compendium of historical notes, manuscripts and engraved plates printed by subscription after an exhaustive survey of the county, and published in eight parts not in chronological order to make up four volumes when complete, from 1795–1815. It was followed by the Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, consisting of Authentic Memoirs and Original Letters of Eminent Persons, which was begun in 1817 and completed by his son John Bowyer Nichols (1779–1863) in 1858. The Anecdotes and the Illustrations are mines of valuable information on the authors, printers and booksellers of the time.
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