Author: Lemoine, Henry
Biography:
LEMOINE, Henry (1756-1812: ODNB)
Born in London, he was the son of a French immigrant, Henry Lemoine, and his wife Anne I. Cenette of Guernsey; he was baptised in the French Huguenot church in Spitalfields on 1 Feb. 1756. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a local stationer and rag merchant and later transferred to a bookseller and baker. His career in the publishing world carried on in this makeshift way. He began to contribute to London periodicals as a hack writer. With a small inheritance, he set up a stall selling books and medicines. He wrote a risqué novel (The Kentish Curate, 1786) and edited books on boxing, ghosts, and medicinal plants, which he published himself; he also started two popular magazines, The Conjuror's Magazine and The Wonderful Magazine. On 8 Jan. 1786 he married Anne Swires at Finsbury. The couple had two children, Henry and Anna, but Lemoine and his wife separated in 1794 when he was imprisoned for debt. The RLF came to his assistance with a grant of £10 in Jan. 1804, by which time the son was apprenticed to the printer Thomas Maiden in London and the daughter was employed as a "lady's companion" in Tottenham. The work for which Lemoine is still known was a study in the history of printing, Typographical Antiquities (1797). After a period as an itinerant hawker or colporteur, he was able to open a bookstall again in 1807, but his health failed and he died on 30 Apr. 1812 at St. Bartholomew's hospital. He was buried on 3 May at St. Sepulchre Without Newgate, aged 60 (sic). (ODNB 10 Nov. 2019; findmypast.com 4 July 2026; RLF #148; information from AA) HJ