Tonson, Jacob (c.1656-1736)

English publisher who became associated with the principal literary figures of his day, including Dryden, Milton, Steele, Pope, Addison, Congreve, and Wycherley. He was also secretary and general manager of the Kit-Cat Club, an influential group of artists, writers, and politicians.

Tonson was apprenticed to a stationer and admitted a freeman of the Stationers' Company in 1677. He then set up in business on his own. He shrewdly bought the rights to major literary works, purchasing Dryden's drama Troilus and Cressida in 1679, and acquiring the full rights to Milton's poem Paradise Lost by 1690.