A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667/Calvert (Elizabeth)
CALVERT (ELIZABETH), bookseller in London, (1) Black Spread Eagle, St. Paul's Churchyard, 1664-66; (2) Little Britain, 1666-67; (3) Black Spread Eagle, Barbican, 1667-73. The widow of Giles Calvert, q. v. During her husband's lifetime she was imprisoned for selling what was considered a treasonable book, and was in prison at the time of his death. After his death she continued to publish books that offended the authorities. In 1667 the Mayor of Bristol laid an information against her for sending books to certain Bristol booksellers about the Fire of London, and she was again arrested and imprisoned in the Gatehouse for some weeks. In the same year Samuel Mearne seized a private press of hers in Southwark, at which was printed a book entitled Nehushtan. After Sir Roger L'Estrange's retirement from the post of censor, she appears to have been left unmolested. The last year in which her name appears in the Term Catalogues is 1673. [Domestic State Papers, Charles II, vol. 43, 21; vol. 76, 29, 30; vol. 77, 49; vol. 209, 75; vol. 248, 88; Arber, Term Catalogues, vol. i.]