June 11 William Waters, Binding Corelis Sonate, 8/9 lett^d ... 4to June 19 Hon. John Blair, Binding Amelia [County] 15/- rent roll. folio June 27 George Davenport, Binding Mrs Ballard’s 3/9 Prayer Book Col Robert Bolling, Binding Councel of 17/6 Trent, folio, gilt & Letter’d 15/- D^o ... Baconi Historia, Henrici Septimi, d^o 2/6 Thomas Jefferson, D^o History Virginia, 4to 8/9 July 3 Col Robert Bolling Jun^r Lettering Pope’s 5/7½ Works, 9 Vols for Miss Sally Waters Aug. 28 Rev^d David Mossom, Binding a Bible 5/- John Gilchrist, Ditto Love Elegies 2/- 7/- Aug. 31 James Anderson, Blacksmith Binding a Quarto 10/- Bible. in ruff Calf
An advertisement Royle placed in the _Maryland Gazette_ for May 2, 1765, throws an interesting light on one of the characteristic labor-management difficulties of his time:
Ran away from the Printing-Office, on Saturday Night, a Servant Man named _George Fisher_, by Trade a Book-Binder, between 25 and 26 Years of Age, about 5 feet 5 Inches high, very thick, stoops much, and has a down Look; he is a little Peck-pitted, has a Scar on one of his Temples, is much addicted to Licquor, very talkative when drunk, and remarkably stupid.
Whoever apprehends the said Servant, and conveys him to the Printing-Office, in Virginia, shall have Five Pounds Reward, and if taken out of the Colony, TEN POUNDS, beside what the Law allows.
This seems a generous reward indeed for the return of a man of Fisher’s unendearing qualities. Not that Fisher, a transported convict, was untalented in his way. “Conveyed” to Williamsburg and lodged in the gaol, he escaped at the end of July, both from custody and from history.
The third principal variety of work done in the Williamsburg binderies was edition binding—the stitching and uniform covering of a whole run of books printed in the same shop. Session laws of the Virginia Assembly, and periodical codifications of them printed in editions of 1,000 copies or more constituted the bulk of edition binding for Parks and his successors.
Shortly before his death Parks had agreed to print and bind 1,000 copies of the 1748 revision of the Virginia code “with the Arms of Virginia stampt on each book.” Along with the other assets and liabilities of the printing office, Hunter took over this contract, which called for the volumes to be finished by June 10, 1751. In October of that year however, he felt obliged to defend himself with the following notice in the _Virginia Gazette_: