Starkey, John (c. 1630-1690), bookseller

Born in Leicestershire, Starkey served his apprenticeship to the bookseller John Sawywell from 1646 to 1655. He quickly established himself in a shop on Fleet Street, where he gained a reputation for publishing and selling the writings of controversial political theorists, such as George Lawson, James Harrington, and John Milton. Starkey’s single most significant publication was the first printed translation of Machiavelli’s Works in 1675. It has been suggested that Starkey himself was the translator, though it is more often attributed to Henry Neville (another of Starkey’s authors). His bookshop by Temple Bar was watched by authorities from as early as 1675, initially for Starkey’s alarming knowledge and news of parliamentary affairs, but by 1679 it had become meeting place for the Green Ribbon Club. In the fallout following the Rye House Plot, Starkey fled to Amsterdam, where he communed with radical thinkers again, including John Locke. In 1688, he assisted the Dutch campaign by publishing Williamite propaganda. Once returned to England, Starkey was chosen as an Assistant for the Stationers’ Company, but refused to take his seat when he was placed in the lowest place, which though appropriate as the newest Assistant, did not reflect his many years in the trade. He died shortly afterwards with the matter unresolved.

Birth: Isley Walton, Leicestershire

Common Councillor for Farringdon Without (1682)

George Starkey (father); Mary Braborne (wife)

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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Mark Knights, ‘John Starkey and Ideological Networks in Late Seventeenth-Century England’, Media History vol. 11 (2005), pp. 127-145