Richard Tottel (c. 1528 – 1593) was a prominent sixteenth century English printer and publisher. For around forty years he ran a successful printing house at Temple Bar on Fleet Street in London.
Tottel lived during a period when, despite the political and social upheavals associated with the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, print culture in England finally became entrenched. His career was directly affected by the developing regulatory structures within the print trade and more broadly influenced by contemporary humanist thought.
The prefaces Tottel wrote to a number of his books reveal a shrewd, politically cautious businessman who was also acutely conscious of the power printing technology had to democratise knowledge and of his own capacity as a printer to bring written works previously reserved for an elite few to a mass common readership.
From very early in his career, Tottel held a lucrative royal patent or ‘privilege’ to print law books. This monopoly ensured his financial success and his legacy now lies mainly with his legal printing. However, his most celebrated and enduring publication is the collection of courtly poetry, Songes and Sonettes, or Tottel’s Miscellany, often considered the first printed anthology of English poetry. Tottel also published other important works of contemporary literature and philosophy.
This site exhibits many of his books in detail and is intended to be a general resource detailing his life and work.
Richard Tottel 