The Family Expositor, the Doddridge Circle and the Booksellers

Although it has largely dropped from sight today, The Family Expositor was culturally significant in its own time and much reprinted, from its publication in 1739 until the middle of the nineteenth century. An ambitious compendium of New Testament translation, paraphrase and commentary, it was conceived by its author, Philip Doddridge, as a learned work for family reading which would awaken and consolidate religious feeling. This article provides an account of the publication of The Family Expositor during Doddridge's lifetime and after his premature death in 1751, through an examination of his correspondence and especially that of his widow, to construct a picture of the collective editing, negotiating and marketing that went into the production of The Family Expositor .