The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700

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John Martyn (1617/18 - 1680)

Prominent London publisher and bookseller, known chiefly for his production of scientific books and, with partner James Allestry, as printer to the Royal Society responsible for publication of their Philosophical Transactions. He began in 1649 in partnership John Ridley, going independent in 1651. He worked in partnership with James Allestry from 1652 until 1664. Dictionary of National Biography entry: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/37741 Other biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Martyn_(publisher) Relevant locations: Lived at or near London, England
Workplace or place of business sign of The Castle, Fleet Street
Workplace or place of business sign of The Bell , Temple Bar
Linked print sources: as Printer or Publisher - An essay towards a real character, and a philosophical language.
as Printer or Publisher - A note touching a relation, inserted in the last Transactions.
as Printer or Publisher - Catalogus plantarum Angliæ, et insularum adjacentium tum indigenas, tum in agris passim cultas complectens. In quo præter synonyma necessaria facultates quoque summatim traduntur, unà cum observationibus & experimentis novis medicis & physicis.
as Printer or Publisher - Martini Lister Historiæ animalium Angliæ: tres tractatus: unus de araneis: alter de cochleis tum terrestribus, tum fluviatilibus, tertius de cochleis marinis : quibus adjectus est quartus de lapidibus ejusdem insulæ ad cochlearum quandam imaginem figuratis: memoriæ & rationi.
as Printer or Publisher - Observations, topographical, moral, & physiological; made in a journey through part of the Low-Countries, Germany, Italy and France: with a catalogue of plants not native of England, found spontaneously growing in those parts, and their virtues ... Whereunto is added A brief account of Francis Willughby Esq. his voyage through a great part of Spain. Few MS. notes [and additions by Sir George Wheeler] .
as Printer or Publisher - Ornithologiæ libri tres: in quibus aves omnes hactenus cognitæ in methodum naturis suis convenientem redactæ accuratè describuntur, descriptiones iconibus elegantissimis & vivarum avium simillimis, æri incisis illustrantur.
as Printer or Publisher - Sylva, or A discourse of forest-trees ... Terra, a philosophical essay of earth ... Pomona: or, an appendix concerning fruit-trees ... Also Kalendarium hortense ... Third edition much inlarged, and improved.
as Printer or Publisher - The ornithology of Francis Willughby ... : in three books: wherein all the birds hitherto known ... are accurately described: the descriptions illustrated by most elegant figures, nearly resembling the live birds, engraven in LXXVIII copper plates: translated into English, and enlarged with many additions throughout the whole work. To which are added, three considerable discourses, I. Of the art of fowling: with a description of several nets in two large copper plates. II. Of the ordering of singing birds. III. Of falconry. By John Ray.
References in Documents:
Objects mentioned in correspondence

I presume by this time you receaved my letter, by Captain Lulman. I receaved yours last weeke, with Dr. Grewe's paper of proposalls, and I am willing to subscribe for one booke myself, and will shewe the paper unto others, and probably some may subscribe, butt others may bee backward, there having been so many subscriptions to other bookes, and some now on foot. I should bee willing to do him any service. You had a kind of fungus not usual, fungus ligneus lanterniforis, like the lanterne of a building; and you had also I thinck the draught thereof. I have also a draught by mee; if you remember not what you did with it, I can send you the draught. It was found within a rotten willowe. Of the Lapis obsidianus Islandicus you had a peece, which I receaved from Island; and I have another peece of three times the bignesse. There is a rock of it in Island, butt at a good distance from the sea, and I beleeve it is not usual to meet with such a stone. Among the draughts of birds which Mr. Martyn had, I thinck there is the icon of an unusuall kind of locust, which was given mee long ago, and brought from the West Indies, butt I never sawe another; which I was fayne to call locusta sonora, as supposing that Odde horny excursion or prominence, running beyond the 3 Probably, "Proposals for printing his Anatomy of Plants," which were read to the Royal Society, March 15, 1681-2, and printed in that year, fol. Lond. 1682. 340 DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENCE. [1682. head, made the sound the lowder. I have the animal, and will have it drawne out, if need bee. Wee all long to heare of my daughter Browne's safe delivery. Pray present my service to my sister Whiting and Mr. Whiting. God blesse you all.

Selections from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1665-1669) Henry Oldenberg, ed. Philosophical Transactions: Giving Some Accompt of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World [London] in the Savoy Printed by T.N. for John Martyn at the Bell, a little with-out Temple-Bar, and James Allestry in Duck-Lane, Printers to the Royal Society1665 and 1666