309 © The Author(s) 2021
I. Baird (ed.), Data Visualization in Enlightenment Literature and
Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54913-8_9
CHAPTER 9
Publishing Music by Subscription
in Eighteenth-Century Britain:
The Concertos of Charles Avison
Simon D. I. Fleming
Publication by subscription was a method commonly employed by numer-
ous authors, editors, composers and publishers in eighteenth-century
Britain as a way to issue their latest musical or literary works.
1
Through
1
Books on a diverse range of subjects were also published by subscription, including works
on mathematics, science, and fction. See, for example, Ruth Wallis and Peter Wallis, “Female
This chapter is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Elizabeth Josephine
Fleming (d. 2019).
I am particularly grateful for the assistance of the staff at the British Library,
Durham University Library, the Dean and Chapter Library, Durham Cathedral,
the East Riding Archives, Beverley, the National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh,
Newcastle City Library, the Literary and Philosophical Society, Newcastle, and
Otto Haas Music. Individual thanks are also due to Helen Clark, Colin Coleman,
Gordon Dixon, Simon Heighes, H. Diack Johnstone, Martin Perkins, Tim
Rishton, James Smith, and Michael Talbot. This chapter is primarily derived from
my previous articles “Avison and His Subscribers: Musical Networking in
Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 49,
no. 1 (2018): 21–49, https://doi.org/10.1080/14723808.2018.1363210, and
“The Gender of Subscribers to Eighteenth-Century Music Publications,” Royal
Musical Association Research Chronicle 50, no. 1 (2019): 94–152, https://doi.
org/10.1080/14723808.2019.1570752.