Curtis, Langley (c. 1642-1693), bookseller and publisher

Identity area

Type of entity

Person

Authorized form of name

Curtis, Langley (c. 1642-1693), bookseller and publisher

Parallel form(s) of name

    Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules

      Other form(s) of name

        Identifiers for corporate bodies

        Description area

        Dates of existence

        c. 1642-1693

        History

        Curtis served his apprenticeship to Thomas Matthews from 1659 to 1666. Less than a month after completing his apprenticeship, he married Jane Evans and together they set up as booksellers on Ludgate Hill near Fleet Bridge. Curtis first registered a copy with the Company Register on 16 February 1669, entitled The Quakers Spirituall Cort Proclaymed. He and his wife Jane were responsible for numerous scandalous and seditious works and consequently in near constant trouble with the authorities. The Curtis’ most incendiary works were carefully timed political commentaries, such as A Pacquet of Advice from Rome, a weekly sheet first released in 1678, coinciding with the frenzy of the Popish Plot; Scroggs upon Scroggs (1681) satirising Lord Chief Justice William Scroggs; and Lord Russell’s Ghost (1683) on the Whig martyr Lord William Russelll. It was publications like these, which has seen Curtis labelled a Whig publisher, further consolidated by his newspaper the True Protestant Mercury. Langley Curtis’s final imprint is dated 1690. He appears to have died in 1693 in Ireland.

        Places

        Legal status

        Functions, occupations and activities

        Mandates/sources of authority

        Internal structures/genealogy

        Robert Curtis (father); Jane Evans (wife), publisher; Langley Curtis (son), publisher

        General context

        Relationships area

        Access points area

        Subject access points

        Place access points

        Occupations

        Control area

        Authority record identifier

        359e9955-260d-4f23-a2a3-e4bd165a08aa

        Institution identifier

        Stationers' Company Archive

        Rules and/or conventions used

        MARC21 Authority; ESTC

        Status

        Revised

        Level of detail

        Dates of creation, revision and deletion

        Language(s)

        • English

        Script(s)

        • Latin

        Sources

        Maintenance notes