THE PUBLISHERS

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The imprints of the three parts agree that the booksellers or publishers handling the editions were Allen Banks and Charles Harper. The first part gives their shop as the "Flower-De-luice near Cripplegate Church," the second part as the "Flower-de-luce" as before, and the combined parts as "next door to the three Squerrills in Fleet-street, over against St. Dunstans Church." The church is still there, with more than two centuries of dirt and soot marking its walls since Neville wrote, and Chancery and Fettar Lanes enable one to place quite accurately the location of the booksellers' shop. Only three times do the names of Banks and Harper appear as partners on the Stationers' Registers,{1} and they separated about 1671, Banks going to the "St Peter at the West End of St Pauls." If any judgment may be drawn from their publications after ceasing to be partners, Banks leaned to light literature and may have been responsible for taking up the "Isle of Pines." Yet Harper was Neville's publisher in 1674 and in 1681, a fact which may indicate a personal relation.{2}

1 Eyre and Rivington, ii. 386, 388, and 410.

2 Sec page 34, infra.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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