A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667/Sweeting (John)
SWEETING (JOHN), bookseller in London, (1) Crown in Cornhill, 1639; (2) Angell in Pope's Head Alley, 1639-61. Took up his freedom June 27th, 1639. [Arber, iii. 688.] The following advertisement which appeared in the Perfect Account for the week ending Wednesday, January 4th, 1654, will best show the nature of his business: "There is published five new plays in one vollum, viz., The mad couple well matcht; The Novella; The Court Beggar; The City Wit; and the Damoisella; all written by Richard Brown (sic) A Collection of those excellent letters to several persons of honour; written by John Donne sometime Dean of St. Paul's London. Likewise a poem called the Shepheards Oracles, delivered in certain Eglogues by Francis Quarls. And the Poems of John Donne … with elegies on the authors death, to which is added divers copies under his own hand never before printed. All which are to be sold by John Sweeting at the Angell in Pope's Head Alley." Sweeting died in 1661, and by his will left a sum of money to the Company of Stationers to be spent on two dinners for all the bachelors that were booksellers and free of the Company. [Timperley, p. 527.]