Print run data for Royal Society journals 1665-1970

Dataset

Description

This spreadsheet contains all the data we have so far managed to gather on the print runs of the Philosophical Transactions and the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Philosophical Transactions was founded in 1665, and split into series A and series B in 1887: there are therefore two tabs, dealing with Transaction before and after the split . Proceedings was founded in 1831, and split into series A and series B in 1905: again, there are two tabs, dealing with Proceedings before and after the split. The data are very, very incomplete. After the Royal Society took ownership of the Transactions in 1752, one might have expected better records of printing/publishing details - but print run rarely appears in the Council Minutes. The best data come from the period in the 19th century, when the journals were printed by Richard Taylor (later Taylor & Francis) - and the archives of T&F include ledgers giving details of the print runs. For the 20th century, there are only very occasional reports/reviews that mention print run (though a minimum estimate for print runs can be based upon the known circulation figures after 1955 - see separate file)
Date made available2022
PublisherFigshare
Temporal coverage1665 - 1970

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