WOLF or WOLFE (JOHN), printer in London, 1579-1601; (1) Distaff Lane, over against the Castle; (2) Over against the South Door of St. Pauls, or, at St. Paul's Chain, 1592. John Wolf was a member of an old Sussex family, and was a retainer of the family of Goring [Lower's Hist. of Sussex, vol. 1, p. 23; Cartwright's Rape of Bramber, vol. ii, pt. 2, p. 102]. He is spoken of originally as a member of the Fishmongers' Company, perhaps by "patrimony," but there is no evidence on the point. The first heard of him in connection with printing is on March 25th, 1562, when he began an apprenticeship of ten years with John Day { DAY, John (1522 - 1584) ‹ LBT 07316 › } [Arber, i. 172]. He was therefore rightly out of his time in 1572, after which he appears to have gone abroad and to have been for some time in Italy. In 1576 two Rapresentazione were printed in Florence "ad instanzia di Giovanni Vuolfio, Inglese." One of these is in the British Museum [C.34/36, h. 6.]. Professor Gerber in his articles in Modern Language Notes, vol. xxii, p. 131, suggests that Wolf worked for a time in the printing office of the Giunti. Seeing that he afterwards used one of the devices of Gabriel Giolito, he was probably intimate with that office also. The next heard of him is in 1579, in which year he entered a Latin book in the Registers and was given a license for it, on the condition that he gave the printing to John Charlewood { CHARLEWOOD, John ( - 1593) ‹ LBT 07132 › }. Shortly afterwards he set up a press of his own and became one of the ringleaders of the agitation against the monopolies of the privileged printers. This began as early as the year 1581, when John Wolf, John Charlewood and Roger Ward { WARDE, Roger ( - 1598) ‹ LBT 08076 › } joined with other members of the Company in printing and selling the most valuable books for which letters patent had been granted to other men. On June 19th, 1581, Wolf entered into recognisances before the Privy Council not to print the Latin Grammar that belonged to Francis Flower [Acts of the Privy Council, N.S., xiii. 88]. But he and his companions went on printing large numbers of privileged books such as John Day's A B C and Little Catechisme. When Remonstrated with by Christopher Barker { BARKER, Christopher (1529 - 1599) ‹ LBT 06871 › }, the Queen's printer, Wolf retorted that the Queen had no right to grant privileges, and that just as Luther had reformed religion, so he, Wolf, would reform the government of the printing and bookselling trades. He was thrown into prison in 1582, but was released on the intervention of George Goring, who claimed John Wolf as his "man" [i.e., his tenant or vassal]. Before the end of the year, however, Wolf was again a prisoner. In May, 1583, he was declared to have "iij presses and ij more since found in a secret vault" [Arber, i. 248], but a few months later he suddenly gave up the struggle, as on July 18th the Commissioners who were appointed to enquire into the whole matter reported that "Wolf hath acknowledged his error, and is releved with work." After this his promotion was rapid. In the following year in company with Francis Adams { ADAMS, Francis ( - 1601) ‹ LBT 08001 › }, he was appointed one of the assigns of Richard Day's { DAY, Richard (1552 - 1607) ‹ LBT 07331 › } patent. He was next appointed a searcher for the Company and actively hunted down his former associates. In 1587 he was appointed Beadle of the Company and had four presses at work. In 1593 he became printer to the City of London in succession to Hugh Singleton { SINGLETON, Hugh ‹ LBT 08452 › }, and on July 1st, 1598, he was admitted to the Livery of the Stationers' Company; but in 1600 he was again in trouble with the authorities for printing Hayward's Life of King Henry IV [Library, January, 1902, pp. 13-23]. Between 1580 and 1600 John Wolf printed numerous books in Italian, amongst others the writings of Petruccio Ubaldini, an Italian refugee who seems to have acted as editor and reader for his press. Some of these Italian books of Wolf's were printed secretly and with fictitious imprints. John Wolf died during the year 1601, and several years afterwards his widow { } assigned over a large number of his copyrights to John Pindley { PYNDLEY, John ( - 1613) ‹ LBT 08798 › }; but his printing business and stock were transferred at his death to Adam Islip { ISLIP, Adam ( - 1639) ‹ LBT 07825 › }. John Wolf used several devices, none of which however can be said to have been his own. The best known is the fleur de lys, which is similar to the device of the Giunti of Florence. [The chief authorities for the above are, Arber's Transcripts; S. Bongi, Annali di Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari, vol. ii, pp. 421, 422; Modern Language Notes, Baltimore, 1907, vol. xxii, Articles by Prof. A. Gerber, pp. 2-6, 129-135, 201-6.]
