Eleanor Lay

Eleanor Lay, usually styled Mrs Lay (active 1788–1790 in Brighton), was a publisher and print-seller, with a fashionable print shop on The Steine in Brighton. As well as selling prints from London publishers, she designed and published a number of prints herself, including four views of Brighton in 1788,^[1] dedicated to Mrs Fitzherbert. The original watercolours by Lay are in the Brighton Museum.^[2]

In 1789, she published two prints by the young Thomas Rowlandson^[3] and also co-published several others for a drawing book by Rowlandson with the London publishers Samuel William Fores and John Harris.

One of her plates by Rowlandson A Sufferer for Decency was acquired by Thomas Tegg at some point and reissued by him with modified lettering in the 1810s in the Caricature Magazine.

See also

• List of women printers and publishers before 1800