Commentary on Milton's Contract 1667

The contract between the poet John Milton and the stationer Samuel Simmons, concerning the publication of Paradise Lost, is the earliest agreement between an author and a publisher for which there exists documentary evidence. The commentary suggests that, while the terms of the contract do not necessarily reveal anything substantive about how authors in the mid-seventeenth century understood the nature of the rights they had in their manuscript work, it is nevertheless significant. Since the early eighteenth century, Milton, his work, and his contract with Simmons, were all co-opted, in a variety of ways, to service contemporary debates about the status of the author, about author-publisher relations, and about the nature of the relationship between an author and his work within the context of the emerging copyright regime.

Antonio y Gabriel de Sancha, libreros de la Ilustración, y sus relaciones comerciales con Inglaterra

In this article we take as our point of departure the booksellers' catalogues printed by the Sanchas during the reigns of Charles III and Charles IV, as well as the catalogues issued by their London correspondents the booksellers Thomas Payne and Benjamin White. We contextualize the business relationship which developed between the Sanchas and the London booksellers as a direct result of Gabriel de Sancha's visit to London in the Summer of 1784. This study highlights the significance of a parallel offer of recently published books in English and Spanish in some of the most renowned bookshops in Madrid and London between the mid 1780s and the years immediately before the Peninsular War, a circumstance that no doubt stimulated curiosity on both sides and sped up the transfert culturel between both countries. Notwithstanding their business and private troubles, Antonio and Gabriel de Sancha, self-reliant entrepreneurs and cultural intermediaries, were able to establish a dynamic book trade flow which did not imply the subordination of Spain to England.