Publishers and printsellers
Ogilby, John (1600-76) Author and publisher; translated Virgil, Homer and Aesop into English. For stock catalogues, see Heal,17.111 anbd 112.
Oliver, John (1616-1701) Print publisher, and surveyor by profession. One of three surveyors of London after the Great Fire. Published maps and prints from 1679 to 1686, including a group of anonymous mezzotints 1685-8 which John Chaloner Smith (British Mezzotinto Portraits, 1883) catalogues under his name. He made a few etchings himself.
Oliver, Mary (late 17th cent.) "Mrs Oliver" is included in a list of dealers selling Jean Tijou's Nouveau Livre de Desseins advertised in the London Gazette, 1 October 1694. Her name appears as a later addition to a print by Cockson of 1609 (BM Satire 81).
Oossaen, Aert Dircksz. (fl. 1682-94) Publisher in Amsterdam.
Overton, Henry (1676-1751) Print publisher; son of John Overton; took over his father's business in 1707 and left a fortune of £10,000; the 1726 subscription list to Hogarth's Hudibras includes 'Henry Overton, of Charter-House Square, Gent' who may be identical with Henry Overton I; prints lettered 'Henry Overton' are assumed to be by Henry Overton I unless the date of publication is certainly later than 1751; see also his brother, Philip Overton.
Overton, Henry (1751-c.1764) Print publisher; took over the family business in 1751 on the death of his uncle Henry Overton I; prints lettered 'Henry Overton' are assumed to be by Henry Overton I unless the date of publication is certainly later than 1751; c.1764 his business passed to Robert Sayer, successor to his brother Philip Overton; for the subsequent history of the firm, see entry for Robert Sayer. Trade card in the Heal collection (35.25) gives F. Fernyhough, Druggist and Chymist at the White Horse without Newgate, the style of the engraved decorative border suggests a date around 1750, but it may be a later publication in an old-fashioned style; Fernyhough may have shared the premises with Henry Overton II, or he may have taken it over from him; cheap print publishers were often associated with druggists, no doubt in order to share methods of distribution.
Overton, John (1640-1713) Print publisher. Overton was the son of Thomas Overton, a tailor in Covent Garden, and was apprenticed to Thomas Gould in the Stationers' Company in 1655 for eight years; he was freed in 1663. In 1665 he bought the shop and stock of Peter Stent, after his death that year; to do this, he must have been given a significant capital by his father. To judge from Robert Walton's jibe in his catalogue of c.1674, he did not know much about prints before this date (Overton and others are called 'intruders into that they were never brought up to'), and relied on his printer 'T.C.' (Thomas Cockerill: see Tyacke p. xii). In 1665-6 Overton used Stent's sign and address at the White Horse in Giltspur Street without Newgate. In 1666 the Great Fire forced him to move the White Horse sign to Little Britain, next door to Little St Bartholomew's Gate. In 1668 he moved back again to the White Horse without Newgate, but no longer in Giltspur Street, but instead at the corner of Little Old Bailey near the Fountain Tavern against St Sepulchre's Church. (For the complexities of Overton's early addresses, see the discussion in Tyacke, pp.131-3, supplemented by Globe pp. 218-9.) In 1677 Overton married, in a second marriage, Sara, sister of the printseller John Garrett who is known to have been a friend of his. A presumably related Henry Overton was a bookseller in Pope's Head Alley. Overton issued five catalogues between 1667 and c.1672, and there is an anonymous mezzotint portrait of him (CS IV p.1699, no. 78) made in 1708. He issued many mezzotints in collaboration with Edward Cooper. John Overton retired in 1707, and sold his stock to his second son Henry who had married Sarah Baker in 1706. He died in 1713. His will, signed in 1711, shows that he, his wife, and two of their children (Henry and Sarah), were all living in the White Horse. His bequests amounted to over £1,500—a very large sum—and included capital sums to two other sons, Philip and James, to enable them to set up in trade; a fourth son Thomas had last been heard of in America in 1702. Later members of the family and their successors, Robert Sayer, Robert Laurie, James Whittle, Robert Holmes Laurie and R. M. Laurie continued in the trade until the mid-19th century. A history of the firm from 1748 onwards is given in the entry for Robert Sayer.
Overton, Mary (active 1745-8) Print publisher. Married to Philip Overton and continued his business for three years after his death until she married Robert Sayer. For the subsequent history of the firm, see entry for Robert Sayer.
Overton, Philip (active 1707-died 1745) British print publisher; son of John Overton, and brother of Henry Overton I. Set up his own establishment in Fleet Street, c. 1707, at first using the Overton sign of the White Horse, but soon changing to the Golden Buck. His widow Mary ran the business after his death before the business was taken over by Robert Sayer, c. 1748. For a manuscript bill of 1744, see Heal,17.116. For the subsequent history of the firm, see entry for Robert Sayer.