There are two series of entries of copies in this volume. Much of the volume is unused. The main series of entries of copies is dated 29 Jan 1683-12 Feb 1696; information given includes name of property owner, title of work, name of author, and amount paid (usually 6d per title); entries include name of person/s under whose hand/s the copy is entered, and from 27 Feb 1683 for a period of about a year the name of a witness (mostly Martin Newton, occasionally John Walston or William Scoresby) is usually given (see description below of new method of entry on page 8); from 27 Feb 1683 to 31 Mar 1687 a signature is present for each entry, often but not always that of the property owner; from 7 Apr 1687 the entries in Liber G were copied from the draft register of entries of copies (see TSC/E/07) and the draft register contains the original signatures; there are very few cross references in the margins to entries elsewhere in the volume.
Spine reads, handwritten, 'Book of Entry of Coppies from 1682 [new calendar 1683] to 1695'. [new calendar 1696]
At the top of the first page is written 'The Register of Copies. Mr Samuel Mearn, Mr Francis Tyton, Mr Henry Hills, Wardens'.
The second series of entries of copies is dated 10-29 Apr 1710, and is found towards the end of the volume, entered upside down, comprising 23 unnumbered pages; at the top of the first page of this series of entries is written 'Anno domini 1710 Captain William Phillips, Master. Mr Thomas Hodgkin, Mr John Baskett, Wardens'; information given includes name of property owner, title of work, name of author, and amount paid (usually 6d per title); the property owner often signs the entry. An insert in this section is a sheet of paper with the text of an entry of 19 Apr 1710, from which the entry may have been made, or may be a copy of the entry.
A pencil note on the front fly leaf reads 'The 14 leaves at end should be extracted and put with the 1710-46 vol'.
On page 8 a new method of entry is recorded: 'Stationers Hall. A New Meathod of Entry of Bookes Pursuant to a By Law of this Company made & Ordained at a Comon Hall the 6 day of Decem 1682 and approved, confirmed and ratifyed by the Right Honorable Sir Francis North, knight, Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England, Sir Edmund Saunders, knight, Lord Cheife Justice of His Majesties Court of Kings Bench, & Sir Francis Pemberton, knight, Lord Cheife Justice of His Majesties Court of Comon Pleas at Westminster by Deed under their hands & Seales the 10th day of February 1682, begun the 27th of February 1682'.
On the final page of the volume is a list of five entries of caveats (a sixth dated 10 Aug 1687 is scored out) restricting the entering of specified works, 4 Aug 1684-9 Aug 1687. The list is in chronological order and at the foot of the page is written, 'This was don by me the 27th March 1689. Witnesse my hand Hugh Ryder'.
An insert at pages 188-189 is a note in a later hand of page 8 'New Method of Entry' and page 20 'John Kigdale a whole Duty of Man'.
[Myers states 'Includes entries for 4 Apr 1684 to 12 Jan 1686 (7 ff) - I can't see what she is referring to, unless mistakenly to the final page of the volume]
Significant entries of copies include:
page 34: William Shakespeare's Hamlet entered for Robert Everingham, with a note, 'This book is to be printed by me for Richard Bentley, he not being free of the Company it is entred in my name in trust for him. RE'. A memorandum in the margin notes that 'a moyetie of this coppy belongs to Mr Henry Herringman. Witnesse John Garrett Ck [Clerk] this 19th Dec 1683, & was the whole entred to Mr Everingham by mistake', 19 May 1683.
page 58: John Milton's Paradise Lost, in twelve books, entered for Brabazon Aylmer, 24 Jul 1683, after being assigned to Brabazon Aylmer by Samuel Simons, 27 Oct 1680.
pages 63-73: Beaumont and Fletcher's The Mad Lover, The Wild Goose Chase, The Little French Lawyer, The Loyal Subject, The Spanish Curate, The Custom of the Country, The Double Marriage, A Wife for a Month, The Island Princess, The Pilgrim, The Laws of Candy, The Woman's Prize or The Tamer Tamed, The Knights of Malta, The Captain, The Noble Enemy or The Humorous Lieutenant, Women Pleased, The Tragedy of Bonduca, The Chances, The Sea Voyage, The Maid in the Mill, The Queen of Corinth, The Coxcomb, The Noble Gentleman, The Beggar's Bush, The Honest Man's Fortune, The Martial Maid, The Tragedy of Valentinian, The Prophetess, Love's Pilgrimage and four plays or moral representations; also William Shakespeare's Henry V, Sir John Oldcastle, Titus Andronicus, Eurialus and Lucetia, 'Yorke and Lancaster' (Henry VI parts 2 and 3), Agincourt, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Hamlet, A Yorkshire Tragedy, The Tempest, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Winter's Tale, Henry VI part 3, Henry VIII, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline, transferred from Sarah Martin, widow of John Martin, to Robert Scott, 21 Aug 1683.
page 95: John Dryden's An Essay of Dramatick Poesie and Marriage a la Mode, entered for Master Herringman, 8 Nov 1683.
page 170: John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come. The second part, entered for Nath. Ponder, 22 Nov 1684.
page 226: Aphra Behn's The Disappointed Marriage, or the Generous Mistress, entered for Edward Poole, 8 May 1686.
page 247: Aphra Behn's The Emperor of the Moon, entered for Jos. Knight and Francis Saunders, 24 May 1687.
page 247: John Dryden's The Hind and the Panther, entered for Jacob Tonson, 27 May 1687.
page 282: Tracts of John Milton, entered for Awnsham Churchill, 30 Jan 1689.
page 309: John Dryden's The Prologue and Epilogue to the History of Bacon in Virginia, entered for Jacob Tonson, 20 Nov 1689.
page 311: John Dryden's Don Sebastian, King of Portugal, entered for Jos. Hindmarsh, 17 Dec 1689.
page 331: John Dryden's translation into English verse of the first, sixth and tenth Satires of Juvenal, entered for Jacob Tonson, 9 Feb 1691.
