John Waterson

John Waterson (died 10 February 1656) was a London publisher and bookseller of the Jacobean and Caroline eras; he published significant works in English Renaissance drama, including plays by William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, John Webster, and Philip Massinger.

Waterson was the scion of a family of publishers: his grandfather Richard and his father Simon were both in the book trade. Simon Waterson (1585–1634) was also the brother-in-law of William Ponsonby, the prominent publisher of Edmund Spenser and Sir Philip Sidney; when Ponsonby died in 1604, Simon acquired many of Ponsonby's copyrights.

John Waterson became a "freeman" (a full member) of the Stationers Company on 27 June 1620, and soon after was an active independent publisher. He took over the management of his father's shop, at the sign of the Crown at Cheap Gate in St. Paul's Churchyard. (Simon Waterson is thought to have gone into semi-retirement when his son took over, though his name appeared on published books until his death.) The younger Waterson continued to publish some of his father's works; Simon Waterson issued the first four editions of William Camden's Remains of a Greater Work Concerning Britain (1605, 1614, 1623, 1629), and John printed the fifth and sixth editions (1636, 1637). Simon published the first edition of an anonymous English translation of Guarini's Il Pastor Fido (1602), and John published the second edition (1633).

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