James Stratford (publisher)

1780s – 1810s) was a British printer, bookseller, and publisher in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries who specialised in producing part-works which were sold in instalments for later binding.

[4] In early 1813, Stratford was declared bankrupt[5] and in November 1816 was still held as a debtor in Fleet Prison.

[6] Stratford is known for the part-works he published which enabled large and expensive books to be purchased in instalments and bound later.

Among these was the first edition of David Hughson's description of London (1805–1809) in 149 parts for binding into six volumes,[1] Cavendish Pelham's The World: or, The Present State of the Universe (1806–1808), and George Perry's Arcana (1811).

In the case of Perry's Arcana, for instance, Richard Petit identified only 13 surviving complete copies with all 84 plates during the research for his facsimile edition of 2010.