JOSEPH

See also:

• AMES
• AMES, FISHER (1758–1808)
• JOSEPH AMES (1689–1759)
• AMES, OAKES (1804–1873)
• AMES, WILLIAM (1576–1633)

AMES (1689–1759)  , English author, was born at Yarmouth on the 23rd of January 1689 . He wrote an account of printing in England from 1471 to 1600, Typographical Antiquities (1749) . Ames sent out circular letters with a list of two hundred and fifteen English printers with whose works he intended to deal, asking for any available information . He earned the gratitude of subsequent bibliographers by disregarding printed lists and consulting the title-pages of the books themselves . An inter-leaved copy of the work with many notes in the author's hand is now in the British Museum . Editions of his works were published with added information by William Herbert (3 vols., 1785–1790), and T . F . Dibdin (4 vols., 1810-1819) . Ames's occupation is variously given . It is uncertain whether he was a ship-chandler, a patten-maker, a plane-iron maker or an ironmonger; but he led a prosperous life at Wapping, and amassed valuable collections of antiquities . He died on the 7th of October 1759 . His other works are catalogues of English printers, of the collection of coins which belonged to the earl of Pembroke, of some two thousand English portraits, and Parentalia (175o), a memoir of the Wrens, undertaken in conjunction with Sir Christopher Wren's grand-son, Stephen Wren .

Part of his correspondence in bibliography is included in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes and Illustrations .