Chapter XIII: Part 13

The time of the panic, in 1826, was a season of severe trial, in domestic as well as pecuniary matters; and Tegg, though he maintained that few men were ever insolvent through mere misfortune, began to fear that despondency would deprive him of his reason. And now it was that he appreciated more than ever the brave qualities of his wife, who roused and manned him again to the struggle; till, in the end, he became a gainer rather than a loser by the crisis, for the best books were then sold as almost worthless; and at Hurst and Robinson’s sale he purchased the most popular of Scott’s novels at fourpence a volume.

Among his other great “remainder” bargains we may mention the purchase of the remainder and copyright of “Murray’s Family Library” in 1834. He bought 100,000 volumes at one shilling, and reissued them at more than double the price. His greatest triumph of all was, however, the acquisition of “Valpy’s Delphin Classics,” in one hundred and sixty-two large octavo volumes, the stock amounting to nearly fifty thousand copies, the whole of which were sold off in two years.

To return to his own publications, we find that, up to the close of 1840, he had issued four thousand works on his own account, and “not more than twenty were failures.”

Tegg’s reputation as a bookseller chiefly rests upon his cheap reprints and abridgments of popular works; and, in connection with these, his name is mentioned in Mr. Carlyle’s famous petition on the Copyright Bill. Though we have failed to ascertain to what general or particular works Mr. Carlyle refers, the petition is of such curious interest to all concerned in the writing and selling of books, that we do not hesitate to quote it in extenso[29]:--

“To the honourable the Commons of England, in Parliament
assembled, the Petition of Thomas Carlyle, a Writer of Books,

“Humbly sheweth,

“That your petitioner has written certain books, being incited
thereto by various innocent or laudable considerations, chiefly
by the thought that the said books might in the end be found to
be worth something.

“That your petitioner had not the happiness to receive from
Mr. Tegg, or any Publisher, Re-publisher, Printer, Book-buyer,
or other the like men, or body of men, any encouragement or
countenance in the writing of said books, or to discern any
chance of receiving such; but wrote them by effort of his own
will, and the favour of Heaven.

“That all useful labour is worthy of recompense; that all
honest labour is worthy of the chance of recompense; that the
giving and assuring to each man what recompense his labour
has actually merited, may be said to be the business of
all Legislation, Polity, Government and social arrangement
whatsoever among men;--a business indispensable to attempt,
impossible to accomplish accurately, difficult to accomplish
without inaccuracies that become enormous, insupportable, and
the Parent of Social Confusion which never altogether end.

“That your petitioner does not undertake to say what recompense
in money this labour of his may deserve; whether it deserves
any recompense in money, or whether money in any quantity could
hire him to do the like.

“That this labour has found hitherto in money, or money’s
worth, small recompense or none; but thinks that, if so,
it will be at a distant time, when he, the labourer, will
probably be no longer in need of money, and those dear to him
will still be in need of it.

“That the law does, at least, protect all persons in selling
the productions of their labour at what they can get for it, in
all market-places, to all lengths of time. Much more than this
the law does to many, but so much it does to all, and less than
this to none.

“That your petitioner cannot discover himself to have done
unlawfully in this his said labour of writing books, or to have
become criminal, or to have forfeited the law’s protection
thereby. Contrariwise, your petitioner believes firmly that he
is innocent in said labour; that if he be found in the long-run
to have written a genuine, enduring book, his merit therein,
and desert towards England and English and other men will be
considerable, not easily estimated in money; that, on the other
hand, if his book prove false and ephemeral, he and it will be
abolished and forgotten, and no harm done.

“That in this manner your petitioner plays no unfair game
against the world: his stake being life itself, (for the
penalty is death by starvation), and the world’s stake nothing,
till it see the die thrown; so that in every case the world
cannot lose.

“That in the happy and long-doubtful event of the game’s going
in his favour, your petitioner submits that the small winnings
thereof do belong to him or his, and that no other man has
justly either part or lot in them at all, now, henceforth, or
for ever.

“May it, therefore, please your Honourable House to protect him
in said happy and long-doubtful event, and (by passing your
Copyright Bill), forbid all Thomas Teggs, and other extraneous
persons entirely unconcerned in this adventure of his, to steal
from him his small winnings, for a space of sixty years, at
shortest. After sixty years, unless your Honourable House
provide otherwise, they may begin to steal.

“And your petitioner will ever pray.
“THOMAS CARLYLE.”

Tegg did not confine his business to these cheap reprints, but issued many books which were altogether beyond the popular taste and purse, such as “Blackstone,” edited by Price; Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy,” Locke’s Works, (in ten volumes), Bishop Butler’s Works, and Hooker’s “Ecclesiastical Polity,” &c. Out of Dr. Adam Clarke’s “Family Bible” he is said to have made a small fortune; the work was stereotyped, and re-issue after re-issue was published.

In 1835 he was nominated Alderman of his Ward, but was not elected; in the following year he was chosen Sheriff, and paid the fine to escape serving, having resolved to forego any further civic distinctions. To the usual fine of £400 he added another hundred, and the whole went to found a “Tegg Scholarship” at the City of London School, and he still further increased the value of the gift by adding thereto a very valuable collection of books.

On 21st April, 1845, Thomas Tegg died, after a long and painful illness, brought on by over-exertion, mental and physical. His third son, Alfred Byron Tegg, a youth of twenty, then studying at Pembroke College, Oxford, was so affected by the shock of his father’s death that he died almost on receipt of the news, and was buried the same day as his father at Wimbledon--Thomas Tegg’s native village.

At the commencement of his autobiography, Tegg says, and the narrative bears the veracity of the statement upon every page:--“In sitting down to write some account of my past life, I feel as if I were occupied in making my will. I feel at a loss to express fully my emotions. I write in a grateful spirit. What I have acquired has been acquired by industry, patience, and privation,” and he adds elsewhere, “I can say in passing through life, whether rich or poor, my spirit never forsook me so as to prevent me from rallying again. I have seen and associated with all ranks and stations in society. I have lodged with beggars, and had the honour of presentation to Royalty. I have been so reduced as to plead for assistance, and, by the goodness of Providence, I have been able to render it to others.”

He was generally believed to have been the original of Twigg in Hood’s “Tylney Hall.”

From the commencement of his career, Tegg made commercial success his one aim in life; and with much patience, much endurance, and much labour, he achieved it thoroughly, and, in the achieving of it honestly, he conferred a great and lasting benefit upon the world; for the book merchant holds in his hands the power to do good, or to do evil, far beyond any other merchant whatsoever. Rising from a humble position in life, he never forgot his early friends, never left unrewarded, when possible, his early encouragers and assistants. And if he was proud in having thus been the architect of his own fortune and position, this pride surely was a less ignoble one than that which leads one-half the world to go through life exultantly, with no other self-conscious merit than having, by a simple accident, been born in wealthier circumstances than the other half.

Tegg left behind him a large family who inherited something of their father’s energy and vigour. With his friendly aid and encouragement they, many of them, went elsewhere to seek their fortunes--two to Australia and two to Dublin; and with native perseverance, with a name that was known wherever books were sold and bought, with their father’s connection to support them, and their father’s stock to fill their shops, they have not failed to reap something of their father’s success.

Thomas Tegg was succeeded in London by his son and late partner, Mr. William Tegg, and under his management the business of the house has assumed a graver and more staid appearance. In the preface to the twelfth edition of Parley’s “Tales about Animals,” Mr. William Tegg claims the authorship of the whole series published by him under the pseudonyme of “Peter Parley,”[30] a _nom de plume_, we believe, that has covered more names than any other ever adopted by English writers.

_THOMAS NELSON_:

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND “BOOK-MANUFACTURING.”

Had we space--we have all the will--to be garrulous, we should infallibly have commenced this chapter by a long account of John Newberry, the celebrated publisher of children’s literature. His books were distinguished by the originality and the homeliness of their style, and were wonderfully adapted to the capacities of the little readers to whom, in one instance, at all events, “The History of Little Goody Two Shoes,” they were specially dedicated: “To all young gentlemen and ladies who are good, or intend to be good, this book is inscribed, by their old friend, Mr. John Newberry, in St. Paul’s Churchyard.” Mr. John Newberry was himself, in many cases, the author of these volumes, “price 2_d._, gilt,” which he produced; but he was assisted by men who were distinguished in other walks of life, especially by Mr. Griffith Jones, editor of the _London Chronicle_, the _Daily Advertiser_, and the _Public Ledger_, and by Oliver Goldsmith, who makes Dr. Primrose, when sick and penniless at an inn, pay a hearty tribute to a traveller who had succoured him. “This person was no other than the philanthropic bookseller in St. Paul’s Churchyard, who had written so many little books for children: he called himself their friend, but he was the friend of all mankind. He was no sooner alighted but he was in haste to be gone, for he was ever on business of the utmost importance, and was at that time actually compiling materials for the history of one, Mr. Thomas Trip.” Newberry purchased the copyright of the “Traveller” for twenty guineas, and eventually offered a hundred guineas for the “Deserted Village,” which Goldsmith wished to return when he found that he was receiving payment at the rate of five shillings a line.

However historically interesting and bibliographically curious, Newberry’s business, measured in bulk, was as a molehill to a mountain when compared to the enormous trade carried on by the largest of our modern publishers of juvenile literature--perhaps, also the largest book-manufacturer in the world.

Thomas Nelson was born at Throsk, a few miles east of Stirling, in the year 1780, and was brought up in the very bosom of that strong, stern, unwavering religious faith, which has so often seemed the fitting complement to the ruggedness of the Scotch character; and which, among the other worldly advantages of its system of training, has often prepared its votaries for a successful career in business. His father led a quiet, retired life upon a small farm, not far from the famous field of Bannockburn, and was so satisfied with the content of his humble lot, that he repeatedly refused to take advantage of offered opportunities of making money, by permitting a pottery to be erected on his land. In those days, great gatherings of those known as the Covenanters took place in many parts of Scotland, at the sacramental seasons, and Nelson’s father thought but little of travelling forty miles in order that he might enjoy the privilege of the communion service. Upon the mind of the young lad, who often accompanied his father, these meetings, all probably that varied the monotony of a rustic life, made an indelible impression. When, like many youths of his time who had their own paths to clear in the world’s jungle, he resolved to leave Scotland and to seek his fortunes in the West Indies, his father accompanied him on the road to Alloa, the place of embarkation, and during the journey asked him, “Have you ever thought that in the country to which you are going, you will be far away from the means of grace?” “No, father,” replied the son, “I never thought of that; and I won’t go.” And immediately the scheme was abandoned, and they retraced their steps homewards.

When, however, he was about twenty years of age, young Nelson tore himself from the parental roof, and went to London, and after passing through all the difficulties that are so familiar to young lads who have to fight their own battles unaided, he entered the service of a publishing house--an event that determined, doubtless, the course of his after-life. One of his early associates in business was Thomas Kelly, and, like his friend, Nelson, while diligent and conscientious in his daily duties, still found time for intellectual and religious culture. With a few young Scotchmen, he established a weekly-fellowship meeting, which was held every Sunday. One of the association was employed at the dockyard, during Lord Melville’s administration at the Admiralty, and lost his situation through his refusal to work on Sundays. Lord Melville, however, who had often seen him in the dockyard, enquired the cause of his absence, and on learning the fact of his dismissal, severely rebuked the officials, and shortly afterwards advanced him to a higher post.

In the latter years of Nelson’s residence in London, he was engaged in obtaining orders for the Stratford Edition of “Henry’s Bible,” a work issued in shilling parts, to be bound up in six large folio volumes, which was held in high repute, and attained a large circulation. Nelson secured the names of a great number of subscribers, chiefly in the northern district of London.

After having thus received the necessary business training, and acquired the necessary commercial experience, Nelson determined to make a start upon his own account, and left London for Edinburgh. Here at first he rented a small apartment, which he occupied as a book-warehouse, stocked chiefly with second-hand books, and from this little establishment he issued the “Scots Worthies,” and one or two other works, in monthly parts. In a few years afterwards he removed to the well-known small shop at the corner of the West Bow. Here he commenced his cheap issues in 24mo., of such works as Baxter’s “Saints’ Rest,” Booth’s “Reign of Grace,” “Mac Ewan on the Types,” and some of Willison’s works. Indeed, we have been told, epigrammatically, that Nelson, in this little corner shop of the West Bow, commencing with a humble reprint of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” arrived in time at the more ponderous honour of “Josephus.” In his early publishing career, he and Peter Brown, another bookseller engaged in the same line of business in Edinburgh, were of considerable service to each other, for though they were not in partnership, they contributed jointly to defray the cost of composing and stereotyping a considerable number of octavo volumes, comprising the works of Paley, Leighton, Romaine, Newton, and others. Thus, half the cost of production was saved to each, while the stock of each was doubled. These books were not at first sold through the booksellers, but vacant shops were opened in the evenings in the large towns, where single copies were sold by auction, and the same practice was extended to smaller places, chiefly on the periodical recurrence of the Scotch fairs. This innovation, of course, excited a strong feeling of animosity among the trade, who, for some years, did their best to thwart the sale of Nelson’s publications. Indeed, in 1829, when Nelson, encouraged by the success of his auction sales, engaged Mr. James Macdonald to travel Scotland regularly, his mission, owing to the stigma attached to the auction business, was a failure. At Aberdeen the booksellers rose up in arms, and only one bookseller, Mr. George King, had the courage to give Macdonald an order.

Though opposed in the country, and though for many years he did not accumulate much capital, yet, from his well-known and strict integrity, Nelson never wanted funds to carry out his plans. At the very time that Macdonald was suffering defeat in each country town, Nelson was enabled to purchase from a printer, at a comparatively low price, “Macknight on the Epistles,” in four volumes, octavo; and the popularity of that work forced a quick sale throughout the trade, and gave his business a very considerable impulse.

Nelson was still convinced that the only method of extending his business to any considerable importance, was by means of a regular system of travelling, and Macdonald was succeeded by Mr. Peters, whose success was considerably greater; but it was not until Mr. William Nelson, the eldest son of the founder, took to the road, that the trade business was really consolidated, not only in Scotland, but also in London and the chief towns of the united kingdom. In fact, it may be said, that Mr. William Nelson was the real builder of the business, working upwards from a foundation that was certainly narrow and circumscribed. Mr. Thomas Nelson, the younger brother, was soon after this admitted to the firm, and undertook the energetic superintendence of the manufacturing department, and was the originator of the extensive series of school-books.

Johnson of Liverpool used to narrate that he remembered young Nelson on his first (English) journey, and that he gave him what Nelson called a “braw order.” Shortly after this he was, according to the same authority, joined by Mr. James Campbell, who left the carpenter’s bench to become a “bagman,” and was soon the chief assistant in the firm’s employ.[31]

Before this, however, the energy displayed by Mr. William Nelson had thoroughly consolidated the business, and had entirely dissipated the previous prejudice excited by the auction sales, the more especially as the lowest prices were at once fixed to the trade upon every book issued by the establishment. Mr. Campbell’s success as a commercial man was considerable, and by his subsequent energy and integrity as an agent, at home and in the colonies, the demand for Messrs. Nelson and Sons’ books began to assume a considerable magnitude.

In 1843, the firm removed their place of business to Hope Park; we shall refer to this establishment subsequently--and upon the death of Peter Brown (he had for some years ceased to co-operate actively with them), the stereotype plates which had been the joint property of both firms, became by purchase the exclusive possessions of Messrs. Nelson, and this gave them an advantage in the market they did not formerly possess.

Even while in London, Nelson had collected the works of his favourite divines for his private use, and he now carried out more thoroughly the scheme, commenced in conjunction with Peter Brown, of publishing cheap editions of such books that they might be brought within the easy reach of thousands. Such cheap issues are now a common feature of the trade, but he was one of the first Edinburgh booksellers to introduce the new order of things. The series was very popular, but still it was by the publication of juvenile literature that Nelson’s great commercial success was achieved. The works of this special, and apparently inexhaustible class were distinguished by a good moral tendency, purity of diction, and elegance of production, and were laudably free from sectarian bias, and extreme opinion. It will, perhaps, suffice our present purpose to instance, among his many authors, R. M. Ballantyne, as a favourite with his boyish, and A. L. O. E. with her girlish, readers. One of Nelson’s periodicals attained a large circulation; this was the _Family Treasury_, edited by Dr. Andrew Cameron, and numbering among its contributors such writers as Dr. Guthrie, Dr. Vaughan, Dean Trench, and Brownlow North; in its columns the charming “Chronicles of the Schönberg Cotta Family” first appeared.

Among the greatest of the more recent triumphs of the firm in the way of books for children, was the introduction of coloured illustrations upon a black background--a striking and emphatic method of throwing the coloured pictures into strong relief; the books illustrated upon this principle proved so successful that a host of imitators adopted the same method. The firm are also well known as extensive publishers of a greatly improved series of schoolbooks, of maps, embracing new and ingenious features, and of gift and prize books. Latterly, however, they have entered into a wider and more liberal field, and their current catalogue embraces works in most departments of literature.

For the last five-and-twenty years of his life, Nelson was more or less of an invalid; though from 1843 to 1850 he enjoyed a kind of respite; but during this whole period his sons were associated with him in the business, and during the latter and greater portion of it, the management devolved entirely upon them. Thomas Nelson, the founder, died on March 23rd, 1861, and showed upon his death-bed the effects of that strong piety to which, since a child, he had accustomed his mind. When it was thought proper to announce to him that his end was near, he received the intelligence with the calmest equanimity:--“I thought so; my days are wholly in God’s hands. He doeth all things well. His will be done!” and then he took up his Testament again, saying, “Now I must finish my chapter.” He was buried in the Grange Cemetery, among many Scottish worthies, and lies side by side with Hugh Miller.

Thomas Nelson was distinguished not only by his energy and strict integrity, but by a generous hospitality of the genuine Scottish type. Even when his business was of very small dimensions, his old-fashioned dining-room was generally filled by the Scottish clergy, when any general meeting brought them to the metropolis.

Messrs. William and Thomas Nelson, of course, continued the business, and we cannot, perhaps, convey a better idea of the magnitude to which the trade has in their hands extended than by giving a description of their establishment in all its branches, and for this description we are indebted chiefly to Mr. Bremner’s “Industries of Scotland.”

Taking printing, publishing, and bookbinding together, Thomas Nelson and Sons, of Hope Park, are the most extensive house in Scotland. They removed to their present establishment a quarter of a century ago, and were compelled, after a lapse of ten years, to build a new range of offices far exceeding anything of the kind in the city of Edinburgh, and probably unparalleled out of it. The main part of the building consists of three conjoined blocks, forming three sides of a square. Part of the surrounding ground is laid out as an ornamental grass-plot, and a new machine-room has been recently erected upon another portion.

In the main building there are three floors apportioned to the various branches of the trade. Machinery is used wherever it is possible, and by its aid, and by a well-organized system of division of labour, the number of books manufactured is enormous. Everything, from the compilation of a book to the lettering of its binding, is done upon the premises, and for the founts of type and the paper alone are the proprietors indebted to outside help.

The letterpress department consists of a spacious composing-room, a splendidly fitted machine-room, a press-room, and a stereotype foundry. As very large numbers of the works are issued, they are almost invariably printed from stereotype plates--a process said to have been invented by William Ged, a goldsmith in Edinburgh at the beginning of the last century; the Dutch, however, with some justice, claim the discovery for one of their countrymen, a very long time before this date; at all events, the process was still almost a novelty when, as we have seen, Kelly first utilized it in London. In the machine-room and the press-room there are nineteen machines and seventeen presses constantly at work. Here large numbers of children’s books are produced, and a number of machines are devoted to colour printing.

From the machine-room the sheets are taken to the drying-room, where they are hung up in layers upon screens, which, when filled, are run into a hot-air chamber, where the ink is thoroughly dried in six or eight hours.

The bookbinding department occupies several large rooms, and employs two-thirds of all the work-people engaged. Although machines are provided for a great variety of operations, a large amount of hand-labour is found to be indispensable. As soon as the sheets have been thoroughly dried, they are folded by young women, as the machine-folding is only suitable for the coarser kinds of work. After this process, the sheets are arranged by another staff of girls in the proper order for binding, compressed in a powerful press, and notches for the binding cords are cut by a machine. They are then passed on to the sewers, who sit upon long benches plying their deft needles.

The case-makers have by this time prepared the cases, and in connection with this department there is a cloth-dyeing and embossing branch, where the cloths are prepared; the coloured and enamelled papers for the insides are also made upon the premises. The case-makers are divided into half-a-dozen different sections, each of which performs a certain and distinct portion of the work. The pasteboard and cloth are first cut to the required size, and then one girl spreads the glue upon the cloth, a second lays the board upon its proper place, a third tucks the cloth in all round, a fourth smoothes off the work, and the covers are now taken to the embosser, who puts on the ornamental additions, and finally the books are fixed in the cases, and sent down to their warehouse, whence they are despatched to all corners of the world, principally, of course, to the London and New York branches.

The lithographic establishment comprises a number of rooms. Sixteen machines and presses are constantly engaged, principally in the production of maps, book illustrations, coloured pictures, and the beautifully-tinted lithographic views, which Messrs. Nelson were mainly instrumental in introducing to the notice of the public. Among the artists employed here in executing preliminary work are photographers, draughtsmen, steel, copper, and wood engravers, and electrotypers. By a process patented by Messrs. Nelson, in conjunction with Mr. Ramage (to whose services they owe much of the superiority of their illustrations), a drawing or print may be converted into an engraving suitable for printing from by the simple action of light, and these engravings, either for copper-plate or letter-press printing, may be multiplied and made larger or smaller at will. The storerooms are said to contain upwards of fifty thousand wood-cuts and electrotypes.

Even the inks and varnishes are manufactured upon the premises.

Messrs. Thomas Nelson and Sons employ some four hundred and fifty work-people in their establishment, about one-half of whom are young women.

The whole of Scotland is of course supplied from the head-quarters in Hope Park; but they have also large branches in London and New York. The former--situated in, or rather forming, Warwick Buildings, at the corner of Paternoster Row--is, though a branch, as large a bookselling warehouse as any in London, and in its interior arrangements is unrivalled. The basement storey is devoted to the stowage of wholesale stock and the execution of export and country orders, and over the shop there are four lofty floors.

The Scotch have during the century especially cultivated the trade of printing and bookselling. In the former branch alone, ten thousand persons are employed in Scotland, five thousand of whom are engaged in the capital. In 1860 there were in Edinburgh no less than thirty firms, who combine the united business of publishing and bookselling, besides ninety who confine themselves to bookselling alone. The eight or nine leading houses, with one exception, print themselves the books they sell; a practice which is almost indigenous to Edinburgh, or, at all events, does not obtain in London. The advantage of cheap labour, which includes, of course, cheap paper, are here so great, especially in the issue of large editions, as to more than counteract the drawback in the shape of transit cost to, and agents’ commission in, London. We have already entered into the history of several of these leading Edinburgh houses, and as our space is growing scanty, we can scarcely now do more than mention the firm of Oliver and Boyd; and though, from their long standing and importance, the career of the house would afford material for an interesting chapter, we must hope to have an opportunity of recurring to the subject at a not very distant time. Formerly Oliver and Boyd enjoyed a very large share of the Scotch country business, and occupied indeed much the same position in the northern, as is held by Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., in the southern, capital. Of later years, however, their attention has been more exclusively fixed upon the publication of educational works, and among the writers whose books have been issued by them, the names of Spalding, Reid, Morell, White, and McCulloch, are known to every schoolboy. “The Edinburgh Academy Class-Books” have also attained a very wide circulation far beyond the walls of the Edinburgh Academy; and “Oliver and Boyd’s Catechisms,” published at the low price of ninepence each, are used in nearly all elementary classes where science, in any form, is taught. As a book of reference for students of every grade, of a larger growth, _Oliver and Boyd’s Edinburgh Almanac_ is, perhaps, unrivalled for the fulness and yet conciseness of every branch of official information, at all essential to the inhabitants of Scotland.

_SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO._:

COLLECTING FOR THE COUNTRY TRADE.

We have, by this time, given historico-biographical notices of publishers and booksellers, representing very various phases of the “trade;” but we have still to show how, in the economy of publishing, and through an ingenious division of labour, the smaller booksellers in town, and all the booksellers in the country and the colonies, are kept constantly supplied with books and periodicals.

Before a new book is published, the work is taken round to the larger houses in the “Row,” and other parts of London, and “subscribed,” that is the first price to the trade, and the actual selling price to the public are quoted, and orders at the former price are given, according to the purchaser’s faith in the expected popularity of the work in question.

The wholesale houses, in their turn, supply all the country, colonial, and smaller London orders, reaping, of course, a due advantage from having the volumes demanded already stowed in their warehouses.

By far the largest business in this branch of the trade is executed by the old-established firm of Simpkin, Marshall, and Company, and though they by no means confine their attention solely to the commission-paying business of middlemen--for they are themselves publishers of educational and other widely-circulating works--yet their name has long, throughout the length and breadth of the land, been held synonymous with this wholesale supply of the requirements of other houses.

The real founder of this enormous traffic was, Benjamin Crosby. The son of a Yorkshire grazier, he came to London to seek his fortunes, and was apprenticed to James Nunn, a bookseller in Great Queen Street. As soon as his indentures had expired, he obtained a situation under George Robinson--the “King of the Booksellers”--and, in a few years after this, succeeded to the business of Mr. Stalker, of Stationers’ Hall Court. Crosby was one of the first London booksellers who travelled regularly through the country, soliciting orders for the purpose of effecting sales and extending his connections. In a short time he acquired a pre-eminence as a supplier of the country houses, and also as one of the largest purchasers at trade sales, especially when publishers’ stocks were sold off. The extension of the business had been very materially assisted by the unremitting exertions of two assistants--Simpkin and Marshall--and when, in 1814, he was stricken by a sudden attack of paralysis, he made over a certain portion of his stock and the whole of his country connection to Robert Baldwin, and Cradock and Joy, he left the remainder, with the premises and the London connection, to Simpkin and Marshall. Soon after this, a second attack deprived him of his speech, and for a time of his reason, and he died in the following year, 1815.

Under Simpkin and Marshall, which was now, of course, the new title of the firm, the business soon began again to expand, for they retained most of their London connections, and following Crosby’s example, attracted the attention of many country clients, whom they not only supplied with books, but for whose publications they became the London agents--a business without speculative risk, and consequently profitable. For instance, in 1827, an unpretentious little volume--“Poems by Two Brothers,” having the modest motto, _Hæc nos novimus esse nihil_, published by J. and J. Jackson, Louth, was also stamped with the imprimatur of Simpkin and Marshall, and thus they had the signal honour of being Mr. Tennyson’s first London publishers, though very probably the honour in this case was greater than the profit.

In 1828, Simpkin retired, or rather was bought out of the business by Mr. Miles, who immediately took the financial management of the whole concern, and the firm adopted the new title of “Simpkin, Marshall and Co.” Simpkin, however, did not die until the 25th of December, 1854, and thus enjoyed a long period of peaceful superannuation.

The practice of lending their names to the works published by their country clients, though free from business venture, was not unattended by legal risk, for in 1834 they had an action brought against them for libel, which at the time attracted a very general and lively interest; though they were indicted solely as the London agents of _Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine_, in which a series of articles had appeared, reflecting on the conduct of Richmond, a man notorious as a spy, and who, as an instrument of the Government, had procured the execution of Hardie and his companion at Glasgow in the winter of 1819-20. Richmond laid the damages that his character had sustained at the absurd figure of five thousand pounds, but Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, to whom the defence was entrusted, so thoroughly exposed the antecedents and present means of livelihood of the plaintiff that before the trial was over he was absolutely fain to withdraw his action and elect to be non-suited.

In 1837 Baldwin and Cradock failed, and handed over the country connection they had derived from Crosby, to Simpkin, Marshall and Company. This occurred on the October “Magazine day” of that year; for three days and three nights the partners and their assistants never left the establishment at Stationers’ Hall Court, and Baldwin’s country clients were so pleased that they had been spared so much expected delay and annoyance that one and all resolved to keep their business in the hands of their new agents; and with this addition to their trade, the business relations of Simpkin, Marshall and Company were now infinitely beyond anything that even Crosby had before experienced.

In 1855, Richard Marshall retired from the business, and consequently, the management of the concern remained almost entirely in the hands of Mr. Miles’s two sons. Marshall died at the ripe age of seventy-five, on the 17th of November, 1863.

In 1859 the premises were rebuilt and enlarged, and every possible improvement, to save trouble and economise time, was introduced into the new establishment. Among the gentlemen who had been employed in the old warehouse was Mr. F. Laurie, a barrister-at-law, who afterwards served in the printed-book department of the British Museum, and who was widely known as the author of a “Life of Henry Fielding,” and as a frequent contributor to periodical literature. As none of the country booksellers have more than one London agent, by him they are supplied with the books and periodicals of all the London publishers, an arrangement that saves an infinity of trouble, expense and delay. A century ago, in the days of small things, the agent made himself useful to the provincial bookseller in many other ways than in the mere supplying of publications. In many cases he was expected to forward the newspapers, but other and stranger commissions often fell to his lot. A great wholesale house in London at the present day would be rather surprised to receive the following orders, which, however, all occur in a bookseller’s records late in the eighteenth century:--“1 sliding Gunter from some of the instrument makers;” “two-eighth share of lottery-tickets;” “1 oz. of Maker’s Cobalt, as advertized on the cover of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_;” or a direction “to please and send on Saturday, and pay Mr. Barratt, Parliament Place, Palace Yard, Westminster, £1 0_s._ 6_d._, King’s Rent, due 10th of October last, for the Vicarage of Holy Cross, Shrewsbury.”

We cannot, perhaps, convey a better idea of the manner in which business is conducted by these wholesale houses in the “Row,” than by giving a description of “Magazine day,”--by far the busiest time in each month. Very quiet is Paternoster Row generally, and its solitude is broken only by the fitful and fleeting appearance of publishers, their agents, and literary men--the latter, as a rule, in clerical costume, with white neckties which betray their avocation as lying in “the religious publication line of business;” while its silence is broken by some venturous barrel-organ player, or by an old blind fiddler, whose music is appreciated and encouraged by the young shop-boys, lurking behind each alley corner to enjoy the furtive pipe. But on “Magazine day” all this is changed, the street is now a struggling scene of bustle and confusion; now every house is in a thrill of agitation from the garret to the cellar, and now every business nerve is strained. Owing to the inconvenient innovation of magazine proprietors, in publishing their periodicals on different days, “Magazine day” has lost much of its pristine glory, but even now the work commences on the eve of the chief day of publication, which is known consequently as “late night,” for the assistants are generally kept busily engaged till twelve or one o’clock. By the morning’s post of this preceding day the country orders arrive, and the invoices have to be made out from the lists received. Every regular customer has his allotted pigeon-hole, into which the invoices are put as soon as copied, together with such of the books he has ordered as are on the premises; for the majority of the smaller country booksellers take advantage of their monthly parcels, and to save expense of frequent railway carriage, include also in their orders such recent books as they may require. Early in the morning, or sometimes on the night before, the magazines arrive, and it is on this morning that the real work begins, for though as large a stock of current literature is kept in each warehouse as is possible, there are still many publishers to be sent to. While the assistants are busily engaged sorting out the books, and supplying each order with the works they have in hand, the “collectors” are furnished with lists of the books required from other houses. The “collector” is by no means an unimportant person in a publisher’s establishment; though “seedy” in attire and suspicious in general appearance, he is entrusted with large sums of money, for the cheaper publications are all paid for in ready cash. Bag in hand he rushes in hot haste all over London, and with an impudent tongue and a pair of brawny shoulders, thrusts himself to the front place before each publisher’s counter. As we listen for a moment to the reply he receives as to the price of a cheap periodical, we may gain an insight into the middleman’s system of profit. “Sixes are fours and twelves are thirteens!” yells the shop-boy, the which being interpreted means that the wholesale price of the sixpenny periodical in question is fourpence, and that thirteen copies go to the dozen.

The bustle at each establishment is, of course, greatly increased by the fact that each house has to supply the wants of others, as well as to satisfy its own--all the counters of the wholesale booksellers being filled with screeching collectors, with greedily-gaping bags. Early in the afternoon, however, the collectors return, and now the books, magazines, and invoices are carried into the packing department, and such works as could not be obtained are written off as “out of print,” &c. Packing is an art not easily acquired, and necessitates the patient and skilful use of much brown paper, and, in many houses, of paper-pulp stereo-moulds, by way of stiffening. The smaller parcels are finished first, and as soon as all are ready for removal the carriers’ carts and vans arrive; all entering the Row in regular order from the Ludgate Hill end, and leaving it in the direction of Cheapside. By the time that peace and quietude are restored to the neighbourhood, some two and a half millions of volumes and periodicals (Simpkin, Marshall and Company alone having probably despatched from six to eight hundred different parcels) are flying from London to all parts of the kingdom--to be greedily devoured and depreciatingly criticised on the morrow.

Not the least profitable portion of the business done by Simpkin, Marshall and Company lies in their Colonial trade, for in this branch, in common with other houses, they insist upon ready money payments, and consequently all bad and doubtful debts are avoided.

Besides holding many valuable copyrights in educational works, and publishing to a large extent upon commission, they, as we have previously shown, are the London agents for all works published by their country clients. Nothing, perhaps, is more curious among modern “literary curiosities” than the sudden and unparalleled popularity of a small pamphlet entitled “Dame Europa’s School,” written in a style and manner not unfamiliar to us in Swift’s inimitable “Tale of a Tub;” witty, certainly, and undeniably apropos to the times, this clever skit was taken by its author, Mr. Pullen, a minor canon of Salisbury Cathedral, through the usual round of the London publishers, and, as usual with pamphlets, they one and all declined even to read the manuscript. Mr. Pullen, in despair, gave it to Mr. Brown, a bookseller of Salisbury, to publish on commission--that is, the author undertook all the risk, and the publisher charged merely a certain percentage on the sales--and limited the amount that was to be spent in advertising to two or three pounds. As Simpkin, Marshall and Company were Mr. Brown’s London agents, the metropolitan sale was entrusted to their care. Without any further trouble or expenditure, the little venture was launched, and in something like a week had created such a _furore_ that the printing had to be transferred to London, and Mr. Pullen is stated to have cleared a handsome sum from the extraordinary sale of his pamphlet, and the commissions gathered by the London and the country publishers were certainly unprecedented in connection with a little venture of this description. The London booksellers to whom it had been offered now began to bestir themselves, and in a few weeks there were no less than seven-and-thirty imitations of “Dame Europa’s School” in the field, more than one of which are said to have been written by very high dignitaries of the Church. All of these have, however, already disappeared from circulation, though it seems probable that the marvellously clever illustrations to the original “Dame Europa’s School,” by Mr. Nast, one of the few really humorous artists that America has produced, will preserve it for a time from the usual fate of ephemeral literature.

_CHARLES EDWARD MUDIE_:

THE LENDING LIBRARY.

Leaving for a while the publishers and vendors of books, we come now to the truest disseminators of literature among those who would otherwise have formed a non-reading, non-thinking, untaught class in the community--a class who, originally at all events, were shut out from the inheritance of the precious garnerings bequeathed by long generations of writers having aught of genius, wit, or industry to leave behind--for they were debarred from all enjoyment of such heritage through their sheer inability to pay the literary legacy duty demanded by the appointed tax-gatherers, the booksellers.

In former times, of course, the very capability to read was confined to the student, and to the poor student especially were the early circulating libraries addressed. The first circulating library of which we have any authentic history--for most history is much other than authentic--was, according to Dr. Adam Clarke and other eminent antiquarians, founded at Cæsarea about the year 309 A.D., by St. Pamphilus, who united in his character the best attributes of the Christian and the philosopher. In a few years the library contained upwards of 30,000 volumes, an enormous number, considering the age at which it existed. The collection was, however, intended only for religious purposes, and the loan of the books was distinctly confined to “religiously disposed persons.” At Paris and elsewhere traces of this collection are still said to exist.

In the middle ages, the practice of lending out books, or exchanging them between monastery and monastery, was not uncommon, and by the early stationers of Paris the manuscripts were cut up into small portions (much as the present librarian’s novel requires to be divided into three volumes), to the greater profit of the lenders; but we come to very modern times before we find that circulating libraries, in the modern acceptation of the term, were established.

The first circulating library in London was founded by Wright, a bookseller of 132, Strand, about the year 1730. Franklin, writing of a time some five years previous to this, says:--“While I lodged in Little Britain, I formed an acquaintance with a bookseller of the name of Wilcox, whose shop was next door to me. _Circulating libraries were not then in use._ We agreed that for a reasonable retribution, of which I have forgotten the price, I should have free access to his library, and take what books I pleased, which I was to return when I had read them.” Among Wright’s earliest rivals were the Nobles, John Bell (the cheap publisher), Thomas Lowndes, and notably Samuel Bathoe, who died in 1768, and to whom, erroneously, the credit of the innovation has been very generally attributed. As late, however, as 1770, there were only four real circulating libraries in the capital.

The practice soon spread through the country. Shortly after Wright’s death, Hatton established a circulating library at Birmingham. In 1745, Watts introduced a circulating library into Cambridge, greatly extended afterwards by John Nicholson, known by the _sobriquet_ of “Maps,” who used to carry a sack of books to each undergraduate’s rooms, in case they felt a sudden inclination for reading something newer than Homer, Xenophon, or Euclid. By the year 1755 we find that circulating libraries had extended to the extreme north of England, for Newcastle then boasted the possession of two.

Though the custom was rapidly obtaining in town and country, the books lent out to read were generally very similar in title to those in the famous list in the “Rivals,” which caused Sir Anthony Absolute’s condemnation--“A circulating library in a town is an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge; it blossoms throughout the year. And depend on it, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves will long for the fruit at last.” We have still only to go to our little country towns and petty watering-places--few now, fortunately, still beyond the arm of “Smith” or “Mudie”--to see the circulating library in its pristine form.

At first the benefits that must inevitably accrue from the movement to the publishers as well as to the public were by no means recognized. Lackington tells us that “when the circulating libraries were first opened the booksellers were most alarmed, but experience has proved that the sale of books, so far from being diminished thereby, has been most greatly increased.”

Under the care of Hookham and Eber, these circulating libraries did undoubtedly improve, for the proprietors now began to consider the wants of students as well as the idle pleasure of loungers who thought with Gray that the acmé of human happiness consisted in lying upon a sofa reading the latest licentious novelties of Crébillon _fils_ and his genus. The movement was further accelerated by the foundation of book-clubs, the first of which is said to have sprung out of Burn’s “Bachelor’s Club.” For forty or fifty years these book-clubs did good service in the cause of education and progress, especially under the fostering care of Mr. Charles Knight and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; but soon an organizing genius arose who was not only to render book-clubs, save those affiliated to his own, unnecessary, but was to develop the full power of co-operation in the circulating library itself. And his advent was favoured by a wonderfully extended system of transport through the agency of the railways.

Charles Edward Mudie was born in the year 1818, in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where his father kept a little newspaper shop, at which stationery and other articles were retailed, and where books of the fugitive fiction class could be borrowed at the usual suburban charge of a penny the volume.

Mr. Mudie’s education was, as he says, “properly cared for,” and he stayed at home assisting in his father’s business until he was twenty-two years of age; and even in his early days he made it his great ambition to possess a circulating library of his own, declaring that when once he was started he would be second to none.

In the year 1840, he opened a little shop in Upper King Street, Bloomsbury, and he carried on precisely the same trade as his father did in Cheyne Walk. By degrees, however, he neglected the newspaper and general stationery business, and devoted himself more exclusively to the circulating library, which he increased at such a rapid rate that the father became alarmed at the speculative spirit of his son. In 1842, Mr. Mudie commenced his system of lending out one exchangeable volume to subscribers at the rate of a guinea per annum; and as he made the addition of every new work, immediately upon its publication, a feature in his establishment, he produced an entire revolution in the circulating library movement, and was rewarded by a rapidly increasing number of subscribers. Nor did he at this early period confine his dealings solely to circulating the books of other publishers. He was himself in some instances a publisher, and from his establishment issued the first English edition of James R. Lowell’s “Poems,” and Mr. George Dawson’s first “Orations.”

In 1852 the library had grown too large for the house in Upper King Street, and he removed his business to two houses which form part of his present establishment--the penultimate house in New Oxford Street, and the penultimate house in Museum Street; and though the corner house intervened, the two were connected by a passage. Gradually, as the business grew, the houses on either side were absorbed. In 1860 the large hall was opened, and inaugurated by a festive gathering of literary men and publishers; and the entire block of building, as it stands at present, occupies the sites of eight houses, and even now great additions are being made to the rear of the premises. As the popularity of the library increased, branch houses were opened in the city, in Birmingham and Manchester, and arrangements were made with literary institutions, provincial libraries, book-clubs, and societies.

The magnitude of the business had, however, now grown beyond the limit of individual capital, and, in 1864, Mr. Mudie found it desirable to form his library into a limited liability company. The value of the property was estimated at £100,000; of this he reserved £50,000, and the remaining £50,000 was immediately subscribed by Mr. Murray, Mr. Bentley, and other publishers; Mr. Mudie’s services being, naturally, retained at a salary of £1,000 per annum, in addition to his half interest in the business.

This change, and the increase of capital, proved in every way beneficial to the expansion of the library; and since penning this account we have received a circular announcing an enormous increase of business. From the 18th August, 1871, the Directors of Mudie’s Select Library (Limited) became possessors of the English and Foreign Library and its large connection. This library, which was originally known as “Hookham’s,” at one time possessed one of the finest collections of rare and valuable standard works in London.