‘Setting down experiments of the sciences’

Chapter 2: ‘Setting down experiments of the sciences: printing and the works of Thomas Willis’ starts with a brief account of Willis as a reader, identifying c.100 authors, ancient and contemporary, whom he cites in the treatises. Within a general account of the book trade in the mid-seventeenth century, the tensions relating to censorship and licensing for potential authors are described. Willis’s first books were produced by individuals closely associated with publications of the Royal Society. It is explained that after the fire of London, publication moved to Oxford under the influence of his brother-in-law, Samuel Fell. The chapter provides brief biographies of thirty-four members of the book trade involved in publishing Willis’s books in England. This is followed by a similar approach to description of the book trade in continental Europe where editions of Thomas Willis’s books were published by twenty-three individuals working in the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and Italy. {149 words}