Thomas Jenner (publisher)

Thomas Jenner (died 1673) was an English author, engraver, and publisher in London. He kept from 1624 a print-shop by the south entrance of the Royal Exchange; it was recommended by John Evelyn to Samuel Pepys.

With Michael Sparke, Jenner is regarded as a Puritan publisher, of works motivated by their moral, religious and Protestant patriotic content. An upmarket printseller with a broad base of stock, he was in competition with Peter Stent and Robert Walton. As well as portraits, some being of royalist interest, he sold broadsides and political material. Besides prints and books, he carried picture frames and stationery items.

Engravers who worked for Jenner included Francis Delaram, William Marshall and Willem de Passe, whose wife Elizabeth is thought likely to have been a relation of Jenner. Jan Barra made a set of engravings for the five senses.

Jenner's authors included Joseph Moxon and Matthew Stevenson.

The first work attributed to Jenner himself is The Soules Solace; or Thirty and one Spirituall Emblems (edition 1626; 1631; 1639; 1651 under a new title, Divine Mysteries that cannot be seene, made plain by that which can be seene). It contains thirty copper-plate engravings (one repeated), each with descriptive letterpress. Some of those were influenced by Gabriel Rollenhagen. Other emblematists thought to have influenced Jenner were Dutch, Jacob Cats and Florentius Schoonhoven.

The final engraving, of a person in gay attire, with hat and plume, sitting and smoking at a table, is accompanied by a poem, once strangely attributed to George Wither, whose portrait the engraving was taken to be. The poem was in fact an allegorical work on earthly existence, and its burden was "Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco." Wither, an opponent of smoking, wrote a reply with the counter-refrain, "Thus thinke, drinke no Tobacco."

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