THE FEDERALIST

"The papers under the title of "Federalist," and signature of "Publius," were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, in the latter part of the year 1787 and the former part of the year 1788. The immediate object of them was, to vindicate and recommend the new Constitution to the State of New York, whose ratification of the instrument was doubtful, as well as important. The undertaking was proposed by A. Hamilton (who had probably consulted Mr. Jay and others) to J. M., who agreed to take a part in it. The papers were originally addressed to the people of N. York, under the signature of a "Citizen of New York." This was changed for that of "Publius," the first name of Valerius Publicola. A reason for the change was, that one of the writers was not a Citizen of that State; another, that the publication had diffused itself among most of the other States. The papers were first published at New York in a newspaper printed by Francis Childs, at the rate, during great part of the time, at least, of four numbers a week; and notwithstanding this exertion, they were not compleated till a large proportion of the States had decided on the Constitution. They were edited as soon as possible in two small volumes, the preface to the first volume, drawn up by Mr. Hamilton, bearing date N. York, March, 1788...." This from Madison in a letter to Mr. Paulding at Washington, dated July 24, 1818.

The first seven papers appeared under the title The Fœderalist. No. 1. To the People of the State of New York, in The Independent Journal, and many of the succeeding numbers first came out in that paper: some were issued in The New York Packet, two appeared in The Daily Advertiser, six appeared simultaneously in two or more papers, and nine were not published until the whole was collected in book form.

Mr. Paul Leicester Ford, in his Bibliotheca Hamiltoniana, gives Jay credit for five numbers; "Madison numbers 10, 14, 37 to 48 inclusive; numbers 18, 19 and 20 are the joint work of Madison and Hamilton; numbers 49 to 58, 62 and 63 are claimed by both Madison and Hamilton; the rest of the numbers are by Hamilton."

Duodecimo.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I, vi, 227 pp. Volume II, vi, 384 pp.

TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT
(1721-1771)

Roderick Random, Smollett's first book, had appeared in 1748. The greater part of Humphry Clinker was written in the autumn of 1770, when its author was dying. He "had the satisfaction of seeing his masterpiece, but not of hearing the chorus of praise that greeted it."

Some copies of the first volume have, as in this instance, an error in the date, 1671 being printed for 1771.

Collins, as we have seen, was associated with Francis Newbery in the publication of The Vicar of Wakefield, and he was also associated with nephew and uncle in the sale of Dr. James's Fever Powder, and the manufacture of the celebrated Cordial Cephalic Snuff. We are fortunate in having his orderly and well-kept account books, in one of which is the following entry, worthy of a place here, and at length:

From B. Collins' Publishing Book.
Account Of Books Printed, And Shares Therein.
No. 3. 1770 To 1785.
Humphrey Clinker: A Novel, 3 vols. 12mo.

Of which I have one moiety, in partnership with Mr. William Johnston, London.

Dr.			Cr.
To Dr S. Mollet copy money	£210 0 0
To Printing and Paper 2,000 No.	155 15 6
9 Sets to the Hall and 10 to the Author	6 1 10
Advertisements	15 10 0 __________
	£387 7 4
To Balance for		By 2000 Books
Profit	92 12 8 __________	sold at £24
	£480 0 0	per 100	£480 0 0
My Moiety of Profits, £46, 6s. 4d., for which I received Mr. Johnston's Note, Nov. 19, 1772. —B. C.

Duodecimo.

Collation: Three volumes.

ADAM SMITH
(1723-1790)

It is doubtful if any English book were ever longer in being put to press than this one. Mr. John Rae, in his life of Smith, says he took twelve years to write it, and that it was in contemplation twelve years before that. It was explicitly and publicly promised in the concluding paragraph of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which appeared in 1759.

Nothing definite is known of the terms on which the author parted with the work to his publishers, but it is thought to have been sold outright. It is estimated that Strahan paid five hundred pounds for the first edition, and that he published later editions at half profit. The selling price of the first edition was £1 16s. The edition was exhausted in six months, but the number of copies is unknown.

Beginning as a printer, in which capacity we have already seen him in connection with Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, Strahan rose rapidly to eminence as a publisher, figuring prominently in the ventures of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Blackstone, and Blair. He introduced into his dealings with his clients amenities unknown before. His pecuniary successes, as in this case, enabled him to set up the coach which Dr. Johnson said was a credit to literature.

Quarto.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: 6 ll., 510 pp. Volume II: 2 ll., 587 pp.

EDWARD GIBBON
(1737-1794)

We are fortunate in having an account of the publication of this work written by Gibbon himself. In June, 1775, he says:

"The volume of my history, which had been somewhat delayed by the novelty and tumult of a first session, was now ready for the press. After the perilous adventure had been declined by my timid friend Mr. Elmsley, I agreed, on very easy terms, with Mr. Thomas Cadell, a respectable bookseller, and Mr. William Strahan, an eminent printer; and they undertook the care and risk of the publication, which derived more credit from the name of the shop than from that of the author. The last revisal of the proofs was submitted to my vigilance; and many blemishes of style, which had been invisible in the manuscript, were discovered and corrected in the printed sheet. So moderate were our hopes, that the original impression had been stinted to five hundred, till the number was doubled by the prophetic taste of Mr. Strahan. During this awful interval I was neither elated by the ambition of fame, nor depressed by the apprehension of contempt. My diligence and accuracy were attested by my own conscience...."

It was on the 17th of February that the first volume of the great work finally "declined into the World," as the author expressed it. Its success was immediate. "I am at a loss how to describe the success of the work without betraying the vanity of the writer. The first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand, and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pyrates of Dublin. My book was on every table, and almost on every toilette...."

The second edition was called for in 1776. On May 20th Gibbon writes to J. B. Holroyd:

"In about a fortnight I again launch into the World in the shape of a quarto Volume. The dear Cadell assures me that he never remembered so eager and impatient a demand for a second Edition." And again in June he writes to the same: "The 1500 Copies are moving off with decent speed, and the obliging Cadell begins to mutter something of a third Edition for next year." This third edition did not, however, appear until 1782.

In June, 1780, we find our author busy revising and correcting for the press the second and third volumes of the first edition, both of which appeared the next year. Under date of April 13, 1781, he writes to his stepmother:

"The reception of these two volumes has been very unlike that of the first, and yet my vanity is so very dextrous, that I am not displeased with the difference. The effects of novelty could no longer operate, and the public was not surprised by the unexpected appearance of a new and unknown author. The progress of these two volumes has hitherto been quiet and silent. Almost everybody that reads has purchased, but few persons (comparatively) have read them; and I find that the greatest number, satisfied that they have acquired a valuable fund of entertainment, differ the perusal to the summer, the country, and a more quiet period. Yet I have reason to think, from the opinion of some judges, that my reputation has not suffered by this publication. The Clergy (such is the advantage of a total loss of character) commend my decency and moderation: but the patriots wish to down the work and the author."

The concluding volumes were delayed for various reasons as Gibbon said to Lord Sheffield in July, 1786: "A book takes more time in making than a pudding." In June, 1787, he says: "I am building a great book, which, besides the three stories already exposed to the public eye, will have three stories more before we reach the roof and battlement," and promises that, with the diligence and speed then exerted, he hopes to be able to have the work ready for the press in August, or perhaps July. In an earlier letter he says:

"About a month ago I had a voluntary, and not unpleasing Epistle from Cadell; he informs me that he is going to print a new octavo edition, the former being exhausted, and that the public expect with impatience the conclusion of the excellent work, whose reputation and sale increases every day, etc. I answered him by the return of the post, to inform him of the period and extent of my labours, and to express a reasonable hope that he would set the same value on the three last as he had done on the three former Volumes. Should we conclude in this easy manner a transaction as honourable to the author and bookseller, my way is clear and open before; in pecuniary matters I think I am assured for the rest of my life of never troubling my friends, or being troubled myself; a state to which I aspire, and which I indeed deserve, if not by my management, at least by moderation."

The publishers had allowed Gibbon two thirds of the profits for the first volume, which amounted on the first edition to £490. In a letter written in 1788, to his stepmother, he refers again to his relations with Cadell: "The public, where it costs them nothing, are extravagantly liberal; yet I will allow with Dr. Johnson 'that booksellers in this age are not the worst patrons of literature.'" Allibone tells us that the historians' "profit on the whole is stated to have been £6,000, whilst the booksellers netted the handsome sum of £60,000."

The sixth volume was finished June 27, 1787, and was published with the fourth and fifth in April, 1788. Gibbon says:

"The impression of the fourth volume had consumed three months; our common interest required that we should move with quicker pace, and Mr. Strahan fulfilled his engagement, which few printers could sustain, of delivering every week three thousand copies of nine sheets. The day of publication was, however, delayed, that it might coincide with the fifty-first anniversary of my own birthday: the double festival was celebrated by a cheerful literary dinner at Mr. Cadell's house, and I seemed to blush while they read an elegant compliment from Mr. Haley."

John Hall, historical engraver to George III, and one of the engravers of the plates for Alderman Boydell's collection, executed the portrait of Gibbon, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, which faces the title-page of our first volume. The plate was issued separately in 1780, Cadell having "strenuously urged the curiosity of the public" as a reason for its immediate publication. It was most appropriate to introduce, as he did, the vignettes emblematic of Rome.

Duodecimo.

Collation: Six volumes.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
(1751-1816)

The first performance of the play occurred May 8, 1777, at the Drury Lane Theatre, which had been opened under Sheridan's management the previous year. A publisher immediately offered five hundred guineas for a corrected copy of the comedy, and Sheridan promised to prepare it for the press; but Mr. W. Fraser Rae tells us that when importuned for the revised manuscript Sheridan "always replied that he had never been able to satisfy himself as to the version which he wished to be published, and the comedy, with any of his final corrections, has not yet been given to the world."

The Ewling edition was printed from an acting copy which Sheridan had given to his sister, Mrs. LeFanu of Dublin, who, for one hundred guineas and free admission to the theater for herself and family, had let it go to Mr. Roger of the Theatre Royal. A dated edition appeared in Dublin in 1781.

The omission of the author's name from the title-page recalls the foolish statement made by Dr. Watkins on the authority of Isaac Reed, "that the play was written by a young lady, the daughter of a merchant in Thames Street [whose name and the number of whose house are judiciously withheld], that, at the beginning of the season when Mr. Sheridan commenced his management, the manuscript was put into his hands for judgment, soon after which the fair writer, who was then in a stage of decline, went to Bristol Hot Wells, where she died."

Duodecimo.

Collation: vi, 93 pp., 1 l.

WILLIAM COWPER
(1731-1800)

In October, 1784, William Cawthorne Unwin,

"A friend whose worth deserves as warm a lay

As ever friendship penned,"

received from Cowper "four quires of verse" with the request that it might be read by him and, if approved, conveyed to Joseph Johnson, the publisher of Cowper's first volume.

"If, when you make the offer of my book [The Task], to Johnson, he should stroke his chin, and look up at the ceiling and cry 'Humph!', anticipate him, I beseech you, at once by saying 'that you know I should be sorry that he should undertake for me to his own disadvantage, or that my volume should be in any degree pressed upon him. I make him the offer merely because I think he would have reason to complain of me if I did not.' But, that punctilio once satisfied, it is a matter of indifference to me what publisher sends me forth." Johnson, however, accepted.

"My imagination tells me," says Cowper to Unwin, "(for I know you interest yourself in the success of my productions) that your heart fluttered when you approached his door, and that it felt itself discharged of a burthen when you came out again."

The "Advertisement," or preface, accounting for The Task, is worth reprinting. It runs:

"The hiſtory of the following production is briefly this. A lady, fond of blank verſe, demanded a poem of that kind from the author, and gave him the Sofa for a ſubject. He obeyed; and having much leiſure, connected another ſubject with it; and purſuing the train of thought to which his ſituation and turn of mind led him, brought forth at length, inſtead of the trifle which he at firſt intended, a ſerious affair—a Volume."

The lady, who was Cowper's friend, Lady Austin, was also responsible for John Gilpin, for it was from her that the poet first heard the tale. It is said that he wrote the outline that night and sent it to The Public Advertiser, anonymously, the next morning; but, in fact, it appeared in November, 1782. It had a great success in the newspapers, and in pamphlet form, and Henderson, the actor, gave it further vogue by his recitations.

"I have not been without thoughts of adding 'John Gilpin' at the tail of all," wrote Cowper, while The Task was in press. "He has made a good deal of noise in the world; and perhaps it may not be amiss to show, that though I write generally with a serious intention, I know how to be occasionally merry."

There was some discussion between the poet and the publisher, as to the propriety of putting poems so different in character into the same volume. The poet says to Mr. Newton: "I should blame nobody, not even my intimate friends, and those who have the most favorable opinion of me, were they to charge the publication of John Gilpin, at the end of so much solemn and serious truth, to the score of the author's vanity; and to suspect that, however sober I may be upon proper occasions, I have yet that itch of popularity that would not suffer me to sink my title to a jest that had been so successful. But the case is not such. When I sent the copy of the Task to Johnson, I desired, indeed, Mr. Unwin to ask him the question, whether or not he would choose to make it a part of the volume. This I did merely with a view to promote the sale of it. Johnson answered, 'By all means.' Some months afterward, he enclosed a note to me in one of my packets, in which he expressed a change of mind, alleging, that to print John Gilpin would only be to print what had been hackneyed in every magazine, in every shop, and at the corner of every street. I answered, that I desired to be entirely governed by his opinion; and that if he chose to waive it, I should be better pleased with the omission. Nothing more passed between us on the subject, and I concluded that I should never have the immortal honor of being generally known as the author of John Gilpin. In the last packet, however, down came John, very fairly printed, and equipped for public appearance. The business having taken this turn, I concluded that Johnson had adopted my original thought, that it might prove advantageous to the sale; and as he had had the trouble and expense of printing it, I corrected the copy, and let it pass."

The book appeared in June, having now grown into a volume of poems, containing, as the title-page shows, four works, paged continuously. It cost four shillings, in boards. The volume was a great success, and two issues were made in the same year. These show several variations, but chiefly in the arrangement of the pages. A half-title, found in some copies, and thought to belong only to late issues, reads: Poems, By William Cowper, Esq. Vol. II. Herein we may possibly see Johnson's afterthought to make the book a second volume to the collection of Poems issued in 1782, and referred to in the advertisement on the last page: "Lately publiſhed by the ſame Author, in one Volume of this Size. Price 4s. ſewed." It would have been a shrewd plan thus to make the successful later volume carry the unsuccessful earlier.

Cowper gave the copyright to Johnson, who afterward, when the work proved so successful, would have allowed him to take back his gift, but Cowper refused.

This Johnson was also the publisher of Horne Tooke, Fuseli, Bonnycastle, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Miss Edgeworth. He, as well as his successor, Rowland Hunter, was a dissenter, and the building which he occupied, we are told, was "plain and unadorned, befitting the head-quarters of the bookselling of Protestant Dissent." Charles Knight, in Shadows of the Old Booksellers, has a paragraph, which must be quoted in connection with the appearance of Johnson's books.

"With wire-wove hot-pres'd paper's glossy glare,

Blind all the wise, and make the stupid stare."

The publisher of Cowper was an exception to his brother publishers of that day, who are addressed in these lines. Aikin says of him, "It is proper to mention that his true regard for the interests of literature rendered him an enemy to that typographical luxury which, joined to the necessary increase of expense in printing, has so much enhanced the price of new books as to be a material obstacle to the indulgence of a laudable and reasonable curiosity to the reading public."

It is quite certain that in making the Task he did not sin against these principles of philanthropy, even if he sinned against many of the rules of good book-making.

Octavo.

Collation: 4 ll., 359 pp.

ROBERT BURNS
(1759-1796)

One of Burns's warmest friends, Gavin Hamilton, advised him to publish his poems in order to get enough money to emigrate to Jamaica, where it was hoped he would escape from the complications incident upon his love affair with Jean Armour. In the preface Burns tells us that none of the poems was written with a view to publication, but as a counterpoise to the troubles of the world.

The Proposals For Publishing By Subscription, Scottish Poems, By Robert Burns, only one copy of which is known, appeared in 1786, and ran as follows: "The Work to be elegantly printed, in one volume octavo. Price, stitched, Three Shillings. As the Author has not the most distant mercenary view in publishing, as soon as so many subscribers appear as will defray the necessary expense, the work will be sent to Press." A stanza of a poem by Alan Ramsay was followed by the agreement: "We undersubscribers engage to take the above-mentioned work on the conditions specified." The book went to press in June, and appeared the last day of July. Six hundred and twelve copies were printed; three hundred and fifty were taken by the author's friends; and, by August 28, all but thirteen had been sold. Burns cleared about twenty pounds.

In October a new edition of a thousand copies was suggested by Burns, but the printer refused to proceed unless the author would advance twenty-seven pounds, the price of the paper, "But this, you know," says the luckless poet to Robert Aiken, "is out of my power; so farewell hopes of a second edition till I grow richer! an epocha, which, I think, will arrive at the payment of the British National Debt."

Unlike Messrs. Dunlop and Wilson of Glasgow, to whom Burns is said, without much authority, to have first offered the poem, Wilson, the printer of the little volume, was not a great or leading publisher; but he succeeded in making a volume that is very charming in appearance, and not without reminders of the French press-work of the period.

A copy of this book sold at the auction of the library of Mr. A. C. Lamb of Dundee, in February, 1898, for the sum of five hundred and seventy-two pounds, five shillings—"the most amazing price ever realized for a modern book."

Octavo.

Collation: 240 pp.

GILBERT WHITE
(1720-1793)

"B. White" was Benjamin, next older brother of Gilbert, and one of the chief publishers of books relating to natural history. His interest in this book, therefore, must have been more than usually great, an assumption justified by its typographical appearance. It may, perhaps, be truly said that, with the possible exceptions of Clarendon's History and Percy's Reliques, it is the only work in our series having special artistic merit.

Thomas Bensley was one of the first English printers to turn his attention to printing as a fine art; and he may be reckoned, with Bulmer, chief among the reformers of the art. As Dibdin says, in the Bibliographical Decameron, he "completed the establishment of a self working press, which prints on both sides of the sheet by one and the same operation—and throws off 900 copies in an hour! This really seems magical. It is certainly without precedent." It was, no doubt, with intent that Benjamin White gave the printing of this book into such hands, and something of the sumptuousness which afterward in Macklin's Bible and Hume's History of England made Bensley famous may be seen in this work.

Our chief interest in the volume, as a piece of bookmaking, centers in the illustrations, engraved by Peter Mazell and Daniel Lerpinière. These comprise a vignette on the title-page to The Natural History, with a line from White's own poem, "The Invitation to Selbourne"; seven plates, one, the large folding frontispiece, which is said to contain portraits of four of White's friends; and a vignette on the title-page of The Antiquities. They are all from drawings by a young Swiss artist named Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, who settled in London in 1778, and was much employed in topographical work.

White's references to him in various letters give us quite an insight into the details of making this delightful book. Writing to Rev. John White, August 12, 1775, he says:

"Mr. Grimm, the Swiss, is still in Derbyshire; and is to continue there and in Staffordshire 'til the end of the month. I have made all the inquiry I can concerning this artist, as it much behoves me to do. Mr. Tho. Mulso, and Brother Thomas, and Benjamin, and Mr. Lort have been to his lodgings to see his performances. They all agree that he is a man of genius; but the two former say that he does hardly seem to stick enough to nature; and that his trees are grotesque and strange. Brother Benjamin seems to approve of him. They all allow that he excels in grounds, water, and buildings. Friend Curtis recommends a Mr. Mullins, a worker in oil-colours. Grimm, it seems, has a way of staining his scapes with light water-colours, and seems disposed much in scapes for light sketchings; now I want strong lights and shades and good trees and foliage."

The inquiries seem, in the end, to have been satisfactory, and by May the fifth of the next year the young man had been engaged. An entry in The Naturalists' Journal, under date of July 8, 1776, records: "Mr. Grimm, my artist, came from London to take some of our finest views."

On August 9, 1776, he says:

"Mr. Grimm was with me just 28 days; 24 of which he worked very hard, and shewed good specimens of his genius, assiduity, and modest behaviour, much to my satisfaction. He finished for me 12 views. He first of all sketches his scapes with a lead-pencil; then he pens them all over, as he calls it, with india-ink, rubbing out the superfluous pencil-strokes; then he gives a charming shading with a brush dipped in indian-ink; and last he throws a light tinge of water-colours over the whole. The scapes, many of them at least, looked so lovely in their indian-ink shading, that it was with difficulty the artist could prevail on me to permit him to tinge them; as I feared those colours might puzzle the engravers; but he assured me to the contrary."

In a letter to Mr. Samuel Barker, November 1, 1776, we find:

"In 24 days Mr. Grimm finished for me 12 drawings; the most elegant of which are 1, a view of the village and hanger from the short Lithe [the large folding frontispiece]; 2, a view of the S. E. end of the hanger and its cottages, taken from the upper end of the street; 3, a side view of the old hermitage, with the hermit standing at the door, [the vignette on the title-page]: this piece he is to copy again for Uncle Harry; 4, a sweet view of the short Lithe and Dorton from the lane beyond Peasecod's house. He took also two views of the Church [opposite pp. 315, 323]; two views of my outlet; a view of the Temple-Farm [opposite p. 342]; a view of the village from the inside of the present hermitage; Hawkley hanger, which does not prove very engaging; and a grotesque and romantic drawing of the water-fall in the hollow bed of the stream in Silkwood's vale to the N. E. of Berriman's house. You need not wonder that the drawings you saw by Grimm did not please you; for they were 3s. 6d. pieces done for a little ready money; so there was no room for softening his trees, &c. He is a most elegant colourist; and what is more, the use of these fine natural stainings is altogether his own, yet his pieces were so engaging in India-ink that it was with regret that I submitted to have some of them coloured...." The plates bear the legend, "Published Nov^r. 1. 1788 as the Act directs, by B. White & Son."

The work appeared anonymously at the end of 1788, but it is dated the next year. It was sold for one guinea, in boards. Fifty copies were printed on large paper, with the plate on page 3 in colors. Although it seems to have sold well, it was the only edition issued during the author's lifetime. White wrote to a friend in 1789: "My book is still asked for in Fleet Street. A gent. came the other day, and said he understood that there was a Mr. White who had lately published two books, a good one and a bad one; the bad one was concerning Botany Bay ['A Voyage to New South Wales,' by John White (no relation), published in 1790], the better respecting some parish."

The index, which White described when he was making it as "an occupation full as entertaining as that of darning of stockings," was criticised for not being full enough, a criticism applicable to every edition issued since the first.

Quarto

Collation: 1 l., v., 468 pp., 7 ll. Seven plates.

EDMUND BURKE
(1729-1797)

It was well known, long before the book appeared, that Burke was at work upon this subject. As early as October, 1789, he had written a letter expressing his opinion on the revolutionary movement in France, and in this volume he but gave in permanent form a more elaborate and careful presentation of the same subject. Interest in the new volume was in no way diminished, but rather increased by the delay; and when the little book made its appearance, November 1, in a modest unlettered wrapper of gray paper, selling for five shillings, it created a profound impression. The King called it "a good book, a very good book; every gentleman ought to read it," and it ran into eleven editions, or eighteen thousand copies, within a twelvemonth.

Our author and his publishers were well known to each other at this time: they had issued his A Vindication of Natural Society in 1756; and he had been the conductor and chief editor of the historical portion of their Annual Register for a number of years.

Octavo.

Collation: iv, 356 pp.

THOMAS PAINE
(1737-1809)

"Mr. Burke's Attack," as we have seen, appeared in November, 1790, and Paine immediately replied with the first part of his "Answer." Joseph Johnson, who printed Cowper's Task, and published for Horne Tooke, Fuseli, Bonnycastle and Miss Edgeworth, began the work and issued a few copies, but he became frightened at the serious outlook and gave it up. It was then put into the hands of J. S. Jordan, of No. 166 Fleet Street, who reissued it March 13, 1791, under the superintendence of three of Paine's friends, Paine himself having in the meantime gone to Paris. There were a few corrections in the spelling of some words, some passages were softened, and a preface to the English edition, which Paine sent back from Europe, was added to the new edition.

The success of the book was enormous, and it ran into edition after edition. In a letter to Washington, to whom it was dedicated, Paine says, under date of July 21, 1791:

"... I took the liberty of addressing my late work 'Rights of Man', to you; but tho' I left it at that time to find its way to you, I now request your acceptance of fifty copies as a token of remembrance to yourself and my Friends. The work has had a run beyond anything that has been published in this Country on the subject of Government, and the demand continues. In Ireland it has had a much greater. A letter I received from Dublin, 10th of May, mentioned that the fourth edition was then on sale. I know not what number of copies were printed at each edition, except the second, which was ten thousand....

"I have printed sixteen thousand copies; when the whole are gone, of which there remain between three and four thousand, I shall then make a cheap edition, just sufficient to bring in the price of printing and paper as I did by Common Sense."

The earlier editions of the first part were made uniform with Burke's Reflections, and sold, so we learn from the half-title, for half a crown; the second edition sold for three shillings; and the cheap edition, which was Printed For H. D. Symonds, Paternoster Row, M,DCC,XCII., sold for sixpence.

The Gazetteer for January 25, contained the following announcement: "Mr Paine, it is known, is to produce another book this season. The composition of this is now past, and it was given a few weeks since to two printers, whose presses it was to go through as soon as possible. They printed about half of it, and then, being alarmed by some intimations, refused to go further. Some delay has thus occurred, but another printer has taken it, and in the course of the next month it will appear. Its title is to be a repetition of the former, 'The Rights of Man,' of which the words 'Part the Second,' will show that it is a continuation."

The volume was the same size as the first part, and contained 178 pages, selling, as the half-title tells us, for three shillings. It was dedicated to Lafayette. This part was also issued by Symonds in a cheap edition, uniform with the first part, which sold for sixpence.

The printer alarmed by the "intimations" was Chapman. He had offered successively, at different stages of the publication, £100, £500, and £1000, for the work, but Paine preferred to keep it in his own hands, fearing, perhaps, that this was a government attempt to suppress the book. From a financial point of view he was wise, since, on July 4, he handed over to the Society for Constitutional Information, £1000, which he had already received from sales. After Chapman's withdrawal, Jordan took up the printing, but with the understanding that if questioned he should say that Paine was author and publisher, and would personally answer for the work.

The fears of the printers proved anything but groundless. The persecution, by imprisonment or fines, of those who were connected with the publishing (printing and selling) of the book would "astonish you", as Dr. Currie writes in 1793, "and most of these are for offences committed many months ago. The printer of the Manchester Herald has had seven different indictments preferred against him for paragraphs in his paper; and six different indictments for selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine—all previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent, supposed worth 20,000 l.; but these different actions will ruin him, as they were intended to do."

Octavo.

Collation: 1 l., 162 pp.

JAMES BOSWELL
(1740—1795)

Boswell had published, the year before, two specimens of his work: The Celebrated Letter from Samuel Johnson, LL.D., to Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, now first published, with notes by James Boswell, Esq., and A Conversation between His Most Sacred Majesty George III, and Samuel Johnson, LL.D., illustrated with observations by James Boswell, Esq. They were probably issued to secure the copyright, and sold for half a guinea apiece.

The whole matter of publication of the Life was a source of no small worry to our author. He was plunged, at that time, in pecuniary difficulties due to the purchase of an estate for £2500, and it seemed as if he might be obliged to accept the offer of Robinson, the publisher, of £1000 for the copyright of his beloved book. "But it would go to his heart," he said, "to accept such a sum, which he considered far too low", and he avoided the difficulty by borrowing the money. All of these things made him very low-spirited:

"I am at present," he says, "in such bad spirits that I have fear concerning it—that I may get no profit, nay, may lose—that the public may be disappointed, and think that I have done it poorly—that I may make many enemies, and even have quarrels. But perhaps the very reverse of all may happen."

He worked very hard over all the details connected with the making of the book. "I am within a short walk of Mr. Malone, who revises my 'Life of Johnson' with me. We have not yet gone over quite a half of it, but it is at last fairly in the press. I intended to have printed it upon what is called an English letter, which would have made it look better. I have therefore taken a smaller type, called Pica, and even upon that I am afraid its bulk will be very large." He gave much thought to the title-page, and we are told that it was a long time before he could be perfectly satisfied. This statement, we are compelled to assume, refers to the literary composition of the title, rather than to the construction of the page: upon the latter he might have worked much longer and still have been dissatisfied.

The work was at last delivered to the world May sixteenth (the "Advertisement" is dated April twentieth), and was sold for two guineas a copy. So successful was it that by August twenty-second, 1200 out of the edition of 1700 copies were disposed of, and the whole edition was exhausted before the end of the year. A supplement was issued in 1793, at one guinea; and a second edition with eight additional sheets appeared in July of the same year.

With all Boswell's fussiness many mistakes crept into the printing, and the book abounds in wrong paging, omission of pages, and other things "of which," says Fitzgerald, "the great exemplar is the first Shakespeare Folio." So bad were these errors, indeed, that it was found necessary to issue a small quarto volume of forty-two pages to correct them. This pamphlet is sometimes bound up with the second edition. It is entitled: The | Principal Corrections and Addition | To The First Edition Of | Mr. Boswell's Life | Of | Dr. Johnson. | London: | Printed by Henry Baldwin, | For Charles Dilly In The Poultry. | MDCCXCIII.| [Price Two Shillings and Sixpence.] "A Chronological Catalogue of the Prose Works of Samuel Johnson, L.L.D.," is printed at the end.

Charles Dilly, the bookseller, was well known in his day. Beloe speaks of him as "the queer little man ... characterized by a dryness of manner peculiarly his own." He and his elder brother, John, were famous not only for their successful publishing ventures, but for their dinners as well. Boswell speaks of "my worthy booksellers and friends, Messrs. Dilly, in the Poultry, at whose hospitable and well covered table I have seen a greater number of literary men than at any other, except that of Sir Joshua Reynolds."

The engraved portrait of Doctor Johnson by James Heath, after the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1756, which forms the frontispiece to the first volume, bears the inscription: "Samuel Johnson. From the original Picture in the Poſseſsion of James Boswell, Esq. Publiſh'd April 10, 1791, by C. Dilly." A plate of facsimiles of Dr. Johnson's handwriting, and another showing a "Round Robin, addreſsed to Samuel Johnson, L.L.D., with FacSimiles of the Signatures," add to the interest of the second volume. Both plates were engraved by H. Shepherd.

Quarto.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: xii pp., 8 ll., 516 pp. Volume II: 1 l., 588 pp. Portrait. Two plates.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
(1770-1850) AND
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
(1772-1834)

In Cottle, the Bristol bookseller and poet, Wordsworth and Coleridge found a friend whose appreciation of their genius took a practical form. As early as 1795 we learn from a letter of Coleridge to Thomas Poole that "Cottle has entered into an engagement to give me a guinea and a half for every hundred lines of poetry I write, which will be perfectly sufficient for my maintenance, I only amusing myself on mornings; and all my prose works he is eager to purchase." When the two poets planned to issue a book in which Coleridge should show "the dramatic treatment of supernatural incidents," while Wordsworth should try to give the charm of novelty to "things of ever[y] day," it was Cottle who bought it. He says: "A visit to Mr. Coleridge at Stowey has been the means of my introduction to Mr. Wordsworth, who read me many of his Lyrical Pieces, when I perceived in them a peculiar but decided merit. I advised him to publish them, expressing a belief that they would be well received. I further said that he should be at no risk; that I would give him the same sum which I had given Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Southey, and that it would be a gratifying circumstance to me to usher into the world, by becoming the publisher of, the first volumes of three such poets as Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth—a distinction that might never again occur to a provincial publisher."

He gave Wordsworth thirty guineas for the copyright, and issued the book with the following imprint: Bristol: Printed by Biggs and Cottle, for T. N. Longman, Paternoster Row, London, 1798. But this imprint did not remain upon the title-page of the whole edition, for Cottle tells us that the sale was so slow, and the severity of most of the reviews so great, that its progress to oblivion seemed ordained to be as rapid as it was certain. He parted with the largest proportion of the five hundred at a loss, to Mr. Arch, a London bookseller, who bound up his copies with a new title-page bearing his name. The copies of the earlier issue are very rare.

Shortly after the transfer, Cottle retired from business, selling all his copyrights to Longman and Rees, far-sighted publishers, both of whom were also Bristol men. In the transfer the copyright of the Lyrical Ballads was down in the bill as worth nothing, whereupon Cottle begged the receipt for the thirty guineas, and presented it to Wordsworth.

The work was entirely anonymous, with nothing to show that it was a joint production. Coleridge's poem, The Nightingale, inserted at the last minute, in place of Lewti, makes an extra leaf between pages 68 and 69. It is numbered 69 (the verso is blank), but no apparent confusion results since the original page 69 is not numbered, in accordance with the printer's scheme of numbering.

We catch an interesting glimpse of this poet-publisher in a letter of Coleridge's to Robert Southey, written under date of July 22, 1801:

"Poor Joseph! he has scribbled away both head and heart. What an affecting essay I could write on that man's character! Had he gone in his quiet way on a little pony, looking about him with a sheep's-eye cast now and then at a short poem, I do verily think from many parts of the "Malvern Hill," that he would at last have become a poet better than many who have had much fame, but he would be an Epic, and so

'Victorious o'er the Danes, I Alfred, preach,

Of my own forces, Chaplain-General.'"

Duodecimo.

Collation: viii, 68 pp., 1 l., 69-210 pp., 1 l.

WASHINGTON IRVING
(1783-1859)

Early in the year 1809 a notice in the newspapers, headed "Distressing," announced the disappearance from his lodgings of a "small elderly gentleman" named Knickerbocker; and another notice, signed Seth Handaside, landlord of the Independent Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street, reads:

"Sir:—You have been good enough to publish in your paper a paragraph about Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was missing so strangely from his lodgings some time since. Nothing satisfactory has been heard of the old gentleman since; but a very curious kind of a written book has been found in his room in his own handwriting. Now I wish you to notice him, if he is still alive, that if he does not return and pay off his bill, for board and lodging, I shall have to dispose of his Book, to satisfy me for the same."

On December 6, 1809, the actual publication of the work is announced in the American Citizen:

"Is This Day Published,
By Inskeep And Bradford—No. 128 Broadway
A History Of New York.

In 2 vols. duodecimo—price 3 dollars.

"Containing an account of its discovery and settlement, with its internal policy, manners, customs, wars, &c., &c., under the Dutch government, furnishing many curious and interesting particulars never before published, and which are gathered from various manuscripts and other authenticated sources, the whole being interspersed with philosophical speculations and moral precepts.

"This work was found in the chamber of Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, the old gentleman whose sudden and mysterious disappearance has been noticed. It is published in order to discharge certain debts he has left behind."

In this way Irving chose to introduce his satire to the world. The book was put to press in Philadelphia instead of in New York, in order the more easily to preserve its anonymous character.

The pretence that it was a serious history was carried even into the dedication "To the New York Historical Society," and the work may really be described as a practical joke in book form.

The volumes sold well, and, on the whole, were well received. Some members of the old Dutch families of the state saw in them a reflection upon their ancestors that they found it hard to overlook, and Irving himself describes their indignation against him. Mr. Pierre M. Irving tells us that he heard his uncle say that the avails of the first edition of The History amounted to about three thousand dollars.

A narrow folded plate, in the first volume, is entitled, "New Amsterdam (Now New-York) As it appeared about the year 1640, while under the Dutch Government". A legend beneath the engraving adds: "Copied from an ancient Etching of the same size, Published by Justus Danckers at Amsterdam". The view is often missing, being much sought after by print collectors.

Duodecimo.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: xxiii, 268 pp. Volume II: 1 l., 258 pp. Folded plate.

GEORGE GORDON BYRON,
SIXTH BARON
(1788-1824)

Robert Charles Dallas, a "well-meaning, self-satisfied, dull, industrious man," Byron's friend, having read with enthusiasm "a new attempt in the Spenserian stanza," which Byron brought back from Italy with him, undertook to find a publisher for it. William Miller, who afterward sold out to John Murray, refused it on the ground that it contained "sceptical stanzas," and that it attacked Lord Elgin as a "plunderer." To this criticism Byron's reply is characteristic:

"Reddish's Hotel, July 30th, 1811.

"Sir: I am perfectly aware of the justice of your remarks, and am convinced that, if ever the poem is published, the same objections will be made in much stronger terms. But as it was intended to be a poem on Ariosto's plan, that is to say on no plan at all, and, as is usual in similar cases, having a predilection for the worst passages, I shall retain those parts, though I cannot venture to defend them. Under these circumstances I regret that you decline the publication, on my own account, as I think the book would have done better in your hands; the pecuniary part, you know, I have nothing to do with. But I can perfectly conceive, and indeed approve your reasons, and assure you my sensations are not Archiepiscopal[*] enough as yet to regard the rejection of my Homilies."

Murray, to whom the manuscript was next carried, was more than willing to undertake the publication of the poem. He offered six hundred pounds for the copyright of the first two cantos; but Byron, refusing to keep the money himself, presented it to the needy Dallas. Dallas was the intermediary, at first, as we learn from Byron's letter to him dated August 21, 1811: "I do not think I shall return to London immediately, and shall therefore accept freely what is offered courteously—your mediation between me and Murray." Again, in a letter to Murray, August 23, 1811, he says: "My friend, Mr. Dallas, has placed in your hands a manuscript poem written by me in Greece, which he tells me you do not object to publishing."

The relations between Murray and Byron form one of the most interesting chapters in the history of bookselling, redounding equally to the credit of each. In a letter to the publisher, dated September 5, 1811, the poet says: "The time seems to be past when (as Dr. Johnson said) a man was certain to 'hear the truth from his bookseller,' for you have paid me so many compliments, that if I was not the veriest scribbler on earth, I should feel affronted." Murray in one letter asked him to "obviate" some expressions concerning Spain and Portugal, "and with them, perhaps, some religious feelings which may deprive me of some customers amongst the Orthodox," but Byron refused to change anything, saying: "As for the 'Orthodox' let us hope they will buy, on purpose to abuse—you will forgive the one if they do the other."

The following extracts give us an insight into our author's feelings about the appearance and make-up of his book. Speaking of its form, he says: "He [Murray] wants to have it in a quarto, which is a cursed unsaleable size; but it is pestilent long, and one must obey one's publisher." And to Murray himself he writes in answer to a very natural question: "... The printer may place the notes in his own way, or any way, so that they are not in my way. I care nothing about types or margins."

The use of the poet's name on the title-page caused some discussion, as we see from a letter to Dallas already quoted: "I don't think my name will answer the purpose, and you must be aware that my plaguey Satire will bring the north and south Grub Street down upon the Pilgrimage;—but, nevertheless, if Murray makes a point of it, and you coincide with him, I will do it daringly; so let it be entitled 'By the author of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers...." There was another reason why he did not want his name to appear: "Has Murray shown the work to any one? He may—but I will have no traps for applause ... I much wish to avoid identifying Childe Harold's character with mine, and that, in sooth, is my second objection to my name appearing in the title-page." Later, however, as we see, he gave way on this point.

We are indebted to Smiles, in his memoirs of John Murray, for a vivid picture of Byron as a book-maker.

"He afterwards looked in [at 32, Fleet Street] from time to time, while the sheets [of Childe Harold] were passing through the press, fresh from the fencing rooms of Angelo and Jackson. He used to amuse himself by renewing his practice of Carte et Tierce, with his walking-cane directed against the book-shelves, while Murray was reading passages from the poem with occasional ejaculations of admiration, on which Byron would say, 'You think that a good idea, do you, Murray?' Then he would fence and lunge with his walking stick at some special book which he had picked out on the shelves before him. As Murray afterwards said, 'I was often very glad to get rid of him!'"

The poem, that is, two Cantos of it, was published March 1, 1812, in an edition of five hundred copies, which were all sold in three days. We hear from Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire, that "the subject of conversation, of curiosity, of enthusiasm, almost, one might say, of the moment is not Spain, or Portugal, Warriors or Patriots, but Lord Byron!" "He returned," she continues, "sorry for the severity of some of his lines (in the English Bards), and with a new poem, Childe Harold, which he published. This poem is on every table, and himself courted, visited, flattered, and praised whenever he appears. He has a pale, sickly, but handsome countenance, a bad figure, and, in short, he is really the only topic almost of every conversation—the men jealous of him, the women of each other."

Thomas Davison, the printer of the book, was also responsible for many of the volumes of Campbell, Moore and Wordsworth, but he is known chiefly for his fine edition of Whitaker's History of Richmondshire, Rogers's Italy, and Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum. Timperley speaks of the singular beauty and correctness of his works, which brought about him a "connection" of the most respectable publishers of the day, and he adds: "By improvements which he made in printing ink, (a secret of which he had for a long time the exclusive possession) and other merits, he acquired great celebrity; and few indeed of his competitors, could approach the characters of what issued from his press."

"For equal accuracy and beauty, let the palm be extended to Davison and Moyes," cries Mr. Dibdin in The Bibliographical Decameron. In a note he adds: "Mr. Davison is both an excellent and an elegant printer. His Gil Blas, published by Messrs. Longman, Hurst, and Co. is quite worthy of the beautiful engravings with which that edition is adorned: but his Arabian Nights, by Scott, 1811, in 6 octavo volumes, is, to my eye, a more exquisite performance."

Early in their intercourse Murray had said to Byron: "Could I flatter myself that these suggestions were not obtrusive, I would hazard another, in an earnest solicitation that your lordship would add the two promised Cantos, and complete the Poem." But the volume containing the third Canto was not issued until 1816, when Murray paid £2000 for it. The fourth Canto, in a much thicker volume, came out two years afterward, and for this £2100 were received by the poet. The second volume sold for 5s. 6d., and the last for 12s.

Byron must have carried his point about the size, for these last volumes were issued in octavo.

Quarto.

Collation: vi pp., 1 l., 226 pp. Facsimile.

[*] Alluding to Gil Blas and the Archbishop of Grenada.

JANE AUSTEN
(1775-1817)

Egerton published Sense and Sensibility in 1811, while Pride and Prejudice (originally named First Impressions), which had been finished in August, 1797, was first offered by Miss Austen's father to Cadell, the famous publisher, in the following letter:

"Sir,—I have in my possession a manuscript novel, comprising 3 vols., about the length of Miss Burney's 'Evelina.' As I am well aware of what consequence it is that a work of this sort sh^d make its first appearance under a respectable name, I apply to you. I shall be much obliged, therefore, if you will inform me whether you choose to be concerned in it, what will be the expense of publishing it at the author's risk, and what you will venture to advance for the property of it, if on perusal it is approved of. Should you give any encouragement, I will send you the work.

"Steventon, near Overton, Hants.

"1^st. Nov. 1797."

Cadell refused the book without reading it, and it was finally carried to Egerton, who accepted the story and made it into an attractive volume, although Gifford, who afterward read it for Murray with a view to publishing Emma, tells us that it was "—wretchedly printed, and so pointed as to be almost unintelligible."

Mansfield Park and Emma, like her two earlier novels, were issued anonymously during Miss Austen's lifetime. Though the author's name was an open secret, it did not appear in any of her books until the year after her death, when her brother, Henry Austen, announced it in a short biographical notice prefixed to Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

One hundred and fifty pounds were received from the sale of Sense and Sensibility, and less then seven hundred pounds from the sale of all four books issued before the two novels of 1818.

The work, "my own darling child," as Miss Austen called it, appeared in January, and she says of it: "There are a few typical errors; and a 'said he,' or a 'said she,' would sometimes make the dialogue more immediately clear; but 'I do not write for such dull elves' as have not a great deal of ingenuity themselves. The second volume is shorter than I could wish; but the difference is not so much in reality, as in look."

Duodecimo.

Collation: Three volumes.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
(1772-1834)

Coleridge, writing to his wife, April 4, 1803, says: "To-day I dine again with Sotheby. He had informed me that ten gentlemen who have met me at his house desired him to solicit me to finish the 'Christabel,' and to permit them to publish it for me; and they engaged that it should be in paper, printing, and decorations the most magnificent thing that had hitherto appeared. Of course I declined it. The lovely lady shan't come to that pass! Many times rather would I have it printed at Soulby's on the true ballad paper. However, it was civil, and Sotheby is very civil to me."

It was not until May 8, 1816, that the still unfinished poem of Christabel was offered to Murray, who, upon Byron's recommendation, so Lamb tells us, agreed to take it, paying seventy guineas for it, "until the other poems shall be completed, when the copyright shall revert to the author." Christabel is in two parts. The "three parts yet to come," and which Coleridge in the Preface said he hoped would be finished in the present year, never appeared. Kubla Khan; Or A Vision In A Dream is prefaced by a short introduction. The seventy guineas Coleridge turned over to a needy friend. Murray also gave "£20 for permission to publish the other fragment of a poem, Kubla Khan, but which the author should not be restricted from publishing in any other way that he pleased."

We may not pass over this book, modest as it is in appearance, without giving a quotation from the voluble Dibdin on the merits of its printer and his press, "The Shakespeare Press." "Trivial as the theme may appear," says he, "there are some very reasonable folks who would prefer an account of this eminent press to the 'History of the Seven Years War:' and I frankly own myself to be of that number. Nor is it—with due deference be it said to William Bulmer & Co.—from the least admiration of the exterior or interior of this printing-office that I take up my pen in behalf of it; but because it has effectually contributed to the promotion of belles-lettres, and national improvement in the matter of puncheon and matrix."

Dibdin might have said more, without exaggeration; some of the chief glories of English typography came from the hands of William Bulmer & Co., works like the edition of Shakespeare of Alderman Boydell; The Poetical Works of John Milton, in three volumes, with engravings after designs by R. Westall; Goldsmith's Traveller and Deserted Village, with engravings upon wood by Thomas Bewick; Somerville's Chase, with engravings by John and Thomas Bewick; Forster's edition of The Arabian Nights' Entertainments in five volumes, with illustrations after Smirke's designs; and last, but not least, Dibdin's own Bibliotheca Spenceriana. Specimens of printing such as these justify Bulmer's claim that great strides had been taken toward raising the art from the depths to which it had fallen.

One is tempted to wonder if the ten gentlemen friends of Sotheby, smitten by the mania for this new-found mode of expression in book-making, could have had it in mind to issue Christabel with designs by Bewick, or Westall, or Smirke.

Octavo.

Collation: vii, 64 pp., 2 ll.

SIR WALTER SCOTT
(1771-1832)

Constable offered "The Author of Waverley" £700 for its copyright; but was told that the sum was too little if the book succeeded, and too much if it failed. The success of the novel, when it appeared, July 7, 1814, was enormous. One thousand copies were sold in the first five weeks, and six editions were necessary within the year. The whole English-reading world waited for another book from the same pen. Ivanhoe appeared, December 18, 1819, and Mr. Leslie Stephen says that it was "Scott's culminating success in a book-selling sense, and marked the highest point both of his literary and social prosperity."

The "Waverley novels" had been issued in duodecimo, but this volume marked a change to a new size. The paper was finer than hitherto, and the press-work much better. The price, too, was raised from eight shillings the volume to ten. These changes were made, Lockhart tells us, to assist the impression, which it was thought best to create, that Ivanhoe was by a new hand; but "when the day of publication approached, [Constable] remonstrated against this experiment, and it was accordingly abandoned." The sale of the novel, in the early editions, amounted to 12,000 copies. Its popularity to-day is as great as ever.

Scott's persistence in keeping up his anonymity is well known. In agreements with Constable a clause was introduced making the publisher liable to a penalty of £2000 if the author's name were revealed.

A survey of Scott's publishing ventures would hardly be complete without a word concerning this publisher with whom his fortunes were so inseparably connected. Curwen says: "From 1790 to 1820 Edinburgh richly deserved the honorable title of 'Modern Athens.' Her University and her High School, directed by men preëminently fitted for their duties ... attracted and educated a set of young men, unrivalled, perhaps, in modern times for genius and energy, for wit and learning. Nothing, then, was wanting to their due encouragement but a liberal patron, and this position was speedily occupied by a publisher who, in his munificence and venturous spirit, soon outstripped his boldest English rival—whose one fault was, in fact, that of always being a Mæcenas, never a tradesman." By his liberality to writers, Constable transformed the publishing business, and practically put it upon a new basis. He made it possible for authors to do away with aristocratic patrons, and to stand upon their own merits. Scott had good reason to say, even after his disastrous participation in Constable and Co.'s failure, "Never did there exist so intelligent and so liberal an establishment."

Octavo.

Collation: Three volumes.

JOHN KEATS
(1795-1821)

The poems in this volume represent the labor of a little over a year and a half—that is, from March, 1818, to October, 1819,—and were all written after the publication of Endymion. The book was issued in the beginning of July, and was the third, and, as it proved, the last of the poet's works. "My book is coming out," said he, "with very low hopes, though not spirits, on my part. This shall be my last trial; not succeeding, I shall try what I can do in the apothecary line." It was not lack of success, however, that led him to discontinue the publishing line.

Among the "other poems" mentioned on the title-page is Hyperion. A Fragment. The publishers, who seem to have cordially appreciated Keats's genius, refer to it in a special "Advertisement" placed after the title-page, and dated Fleet-Street, June 26, 1820:

"If any apology be thought necessary for the appearance of the unfinished poem of Hyperion, the publishers beg to state that they alone are responsible, as it was printed at their particular request, and contrary to the wish of the author. The poem was intended to have been of equal length with Endymion, but the reception given to that work discouraged the author from proceeding."

The volume was issued in light brown paper-covered boards, at 7s. 6d., and our poet says in a letter to Charles A. Brown: "My book has had good success among the literary people, and I believe has a moderate sale." And again he writes on this subject to Mr. Brown, August, 1820: "The sale of my book is very slow, though it has been very highly rated. One of the causes, I understand from different quarters, of the unpopularity of this new book, is the offence the ladies take at me. On thinking that matter over, I am certain that I have said nothing in a spirit to displease any woman I would care to please; but still there is a tendency to class women in my books with roses and sweetmeats,—they never see themselves dominant."

On the verso of the title-page of some copies, and at the end of the book, we find London: Printed by Thomas Davison, Whitefriars, a guarantee for the excellence of the typography, the key-note of which is struck in the admirably arranged title-page.

Duodecimo.

Collation: 3 ll., 199 pp.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
(1792-1822)

Charles Ollier, the publisher, received the following interesting letter from Shelley, dated at Pisa, June 8, 1821:

"Dear Sir,—You may announce for publication a poem entitled "Adonais." It is a lament on the death of poor Keats, with some interposed stabs on the assassins of his peace and of his fame; and will be preceded by a criticism on "Hyperion," asserting the due claims which that fragment gives him to the rank which I have assigned him. My poem is finished, and consists of about forty Spenser stanzas. I shall send it you, either printed at Pisa, or transcribed in such a manner as it shall be difficult for the reviser to leave such errors as assist the obscurity of the "Prometheus." But in case I send it printed, it will be merely that mistakes may be avoided; [so] that I shall only have a few copies struck off in the cheapest manner."

The latter course was finally decided upon. The manuscript was sent to the printer at Pisa on June 16, 1821, and the first finished copy, in a blue, ornamented paper wrapper, was received July 13. This was not slow work, and the more remarkable when it is known that there are very few printer's errors in the book. This accuracy is due to the great pains Shelley took in revising the proofs.

The volume, and especially the untrimmed copies measuring 10×7½ inches, are beautiful in appearance. There is a certain marked peculiarity in the typography, however, which is explained by Mr. Forman in this way: "The frequent dashes, which seem to have exactly the value usual with Shelley, are all double the usual length, except in two instances. The fact is that, in Shelley's bold writing, these dashes were very long: the English printers would understand this; but Didot's people seem to have followed them literally; and the book being boldly printed, this peculiarity would not be likely to strike Shelley in revising."

The name of the press at Pisa is not given; the fact that the "Types of Didot" were used does not of course necessarily mean that the Didots had an office there, as Mr. Forman would seem to imply.

In the preface Shelley speaks as if he had changed his mind about issuing the criticism of Hyperion with this volume, as he planned to do in the letter to Ollier. "It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem, a criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age." No London edition is known, however.

The poem was first printed in England in the columns of the Literary Chronicle for December 1, 1821, where it was appended to a review; but in this form stanzas XIX to XXIV were omitted. The earliest separate reprint bears the impress Cambridge: Printed by W. Metcalfe, and sold by Messrs. Gee & Bridges, Market-Hill. MDCCCXXIX.

Two quotations from an interesting unpublished letter, belonging to a member of the Grolier Club, show that Ollier, who had been the publisher of most of Shelley's works, had copies of the Pisa book for sale, shortly after it was issued; the letter is addressed to "Meſs^r. Ollier & Co., Booksellers Vere Street, Bond St., London, Angleterre," and reads:

"Bagni. July 27. 1821

"Dear Sir

"I send you the bill of lading of the box containing Adonais: and I send also a copy to yourself by M^r. Gisborne who probably will arrive before the Ship ... The work I send you, has been seen in print by M^r. Gisborne, & has excited, as it must in every one, the deepest interest.

"Dear Sir, Yours very truly

"P. B. Shelley."

Quarto.

Collation: 25 pp.

CHARLES LAMB
(1775-1834)

"Poor Elia," says Lamb in a letter to the publisher, Taylor, under date of July 30, 1821, "Poor Elia, the real (for I am but a counterfeit), is dead. The fact is, a person of that name, an Italian, was a fellow-clerk of mine at the South Sea House thirty (not forty) years ago, when the characters I described there existed, but had left it like myself many years; and I, having a brother now there, and doubting how he might relish certain descriptions in it, I clapt down the name of Elia to it, which passed off pretty well, for Elia himself added the function of an author to that of a scrivener, like myself.

"I went the other day (not having seen him for a year) to laugh over with him at my usurpation of his name, and found him, alas! no more than a name, for he died of consumption eleven months ago, and I knew not of it.

"So the name has fairly devolved to me, I think, and 'tis all he has left me."

In this way our author himself accounts for the pseudonym, which, by the way, he says should be pronounced "Ellia."

The London Magazine, London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, And Joy, was established in January, 1820; but Taylor and Hessey did not become its proprietors until July of the following year, when Taylor, who was something of a writer himself, especially on monetary subjects, acted as editor, with Thomas Hood as sub-editor. John Scott, whom Byron described as "a man of very considerable talents and of great acquirements," had been called to the editorship when Lamb began his essays, and William Hazlitt was on the staff.

The first of the series appeared in the August number, 1820, and the papers continued until October, 1822, when, twenty-seven having been issued, they, with one other called Valentine's Day, which had appeared in the Indicator for February, 1821, were collected to form this volume.

When the book was in press Lamb thought to use a dedication, which he wrote and sent to Taylor with the following note, dated December 7, 1822:

"Dear Sir—I should like the enclosed Dedication to be printed, unless you dislike it. I like it. It is in the olden style. But if you object to it, put forth the book as it is; only pray don't let the printer mistake the word curt for curst.

C. L.

"On better consideration, pray omit that Dedication. The Essays want no Preface: they are all Preface. A Preface is nothing but a talk with the reader; and they do nothing else. Pray omit it.

"There will be a sort of Preface in the next Magazine, which may act as an advertisement, but not proper for the volume.

"Let Elia come forth bare as he was born."

The label on the paper-covered boards gives the price of the volume as 9s. 6d., a fairish price for the neat, but in no way remarkable piece of book-making which Thomas Davison executed for the publishers.

Some copies of the first edition show a variation in the imprint: Messrs. Taylor and Hessey having opened a new shop at 13, Waterloo Place, this address was printed in a line below the old one. Occasion was also taken, at this time, to furnish the book with a half-title.

Octavo.

Collation: iv, 341 pp.

SAMUEL PEPYS
(1633-1703)

To the information given on the title-page, the noble editor adds some further facts in a preface. He says that the six volumes, closely written in short-hand by Pepys himself, had formed a part of the collection of books and prints bequeathed to Magdalen College, where they had remained unexamined (from the date of Pepys's death) until the appointment of Lord Braybrooke's brother, George Neville, afterwards called Grenville, as master of the College. Under Neville's auspices they were deciphered by Mr. Smith, whom his lordship had not the pleasure of knowing.

Pepys used short-hand for his notes because he often had things to say which he did not think fit for all the world to know; and Lord Braybrooke found it "absolutely necessary" to "curtail the MS. materially." The complete journal, all that it is possible to print, was not issued until 1893.

Colburn, the publisher, known for his successful ventures, and especially for the series called Colburn's Modern Standard Novelists and The Literary Gazette, containing works by Bulwer Lytton, Lady Morgan, Captain Marryat, and others, had been so fortunate with an issue of Evelyn's Diary that he was led into the present undertaking. With this edition, which sold at six pounds six shillings, and with two succeeding editions selling at five guineas, he is reputed to have made a handsome profit on the twenty-two hundred pounds paid for the copyright.

The large volumes with their broad margins are handsome specimens of the excellent typographical work of the Bentleys. They are embellished with two illustrations in the text, and thirteen engraved plates. A frontispiece portrait of the author, after the painting by Kneller, was engraved by T. Bragg, and a smaller portrait used as a head-piece to the Life is signed R. W. ſculp. This last is a copy of one of Pepys's book-plates; it has the motto "Mens cujusque is est Quisque" above the oval frame, and "Sam. Pepys. Car. Et. Iac. Angl. Regib. A. Secretis Admiraliæ" in two lines below. Another book-plate used by the Secretary is copied on the title-page. Of the remaining portraits, one was engraved by John Thomson, while five were the work of R. Cooper, who also engraved the "View of the Mole at Tangier" and the "View of Mr. Pepys' Library." The other plates, including one showing facsimiles of Pepys's short- and long-hand; two of pedigrees, and a folded map, are signed "Sid^y. Hall, Bury Str^t. Bloomsb^y."

Some copies of the book on fine paper, with beautiful impressions of the plates, are marked in red on the half-title page, "Presentation Copies."

Quarto

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: 1 l., xlii, 498, xlix pp. Volume II: 2 ll., 348, vii, 311 pp. Seven portraits. Six plates.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
(1789-1851)

The Pioneers was the first of The Leather Stocking Tales. It appeared in 1823, and was an immediate success; more than 3500 copies are said to have been sold before noon of the day of publication. This was reason enough for following the custom of the English novelists of putting on the title-page, not the name of the author, but the name of his first success. The Last of the Mohicans appeared February 4, 1826, and was also a prodigious success.

The surprising meagerness of bibliographical facts concerning Cooper's works is, Professor Lounsbury says in his life of the novelist, characteristic of a reticence and dislike of publicity which extended to all his dealings. "The size of the editions has never been given to the public. The sale of 'The Pioneers' on the morning of its publication has already been noticed, and there are contemporary newspaper statements to the effect that the first edition of 'The Red Rover' consisted of five thousand copies, and that this was exhausted in a few days. But it was only from incidental references of this kind, which can rarely be relied upon absolutely, that we, at this late day, are able to give any specific information whatever.

"He was unquestionably helped in the end, however, by what in the beginning threatened to be a serious if not insuperable obstacle. He was unable to get any one concerned in the book trade to assume the risk of bringing out 'The Spy.' That had to be taken by the author himself. In the case of this novel, we know positively that Cooper was not only the owner of the copyright, but of all the edition; that he gave directions as to the terms on which the work was to be furnished to the booksellers, while the publishers, Wiley & Halsted, had no direct interest in it, and received their reward by a commission. It is evident that under this arrangement his profits on the sale were far larger than would usually be the case. Whether he followed the same method in any of his later productions, there seems to be no method of ascertaining. Wiley, however, until his death, continued to be his publisher. 'The Last of the Mohicans' went into the hands of Carey & Lea of Philadelphia, and this firm, under various changes of name, continued to bring out the American edition of his novels until the year 1844."

Henry Charles Carey, son of Matthew Carey, was as celebrated for his writings on political economy as for his connection with this publishing house, which was one of the largest in the country.

Duodecimo.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: 262 pp. Volume II: 260 pp.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
(1775—1864)

These volumes were issued in three or more styles of binding: paper-covered boards, straight-grain dull green cloth, and half roan with brown glazed paper boards all with paper labels. The publishers' advertisements, two leaves at the end of Vol. II, are the same with each style of binding.

This work was written by Landor during his residence at Fiesole, but it was published after his return to England. His own choleric temperament and irascible manner unfitted him for personal dealings with publishers, as he had found from past experiences, and so the arrangements for this publication were intrusted to his friend Mr. G. P. R. James, the novelist, who sold the manuscript to Saunders and Otley for £100.

The following unpublished letter of Landor's, belonging to a member of the Grolier Club, is interesting as referring to this transaction.

"My dear Sir:

"When I offered my Pericles to MM. Saunders & Otley I did not suppose there was more than enough for one volume, the size of the Examination of Shakspeare. They told you it would form two volumes of that size. Knowing that I had material for thirty pages more, I said that if they would make the first vol: 300 pp. I would take care that the second should not fall short of it more than a dozen pages. Now I have sent them not thirty but a hundred—and they tell me to-day that there is not remaining, for the second volume, more than 175 pp. I have, you perceive, already sent above one third more than what I calculated the whole at, when you had the kindness to make the agreement for me.

"In reply to their letter I have said that, if they will give me fifty pounds more, I will send one hundred more pages, 50 within three weeks, 50 more in the three following; and if this does not appear equitable to them I leave it entirely to you. I shall then have given them 200 pp. for fifty pounds, when I offered them only 285 for a hundred. It will be my business to take care that the remainder shall fall as little short as possible of the preceding. I have furthermore stipulated for twenty copies. Many of these will take nothing from the profits, as more than a dozen will be given to people who certainly would not have bought them, and who are not likely to lend them.

"A friend has offered me some pheasants, which I have desired to be sent to you. I hope they will please the young lion with their plumage. The first of Feb. I set out for Clifton: an old favorite of mine for winter and spring. I have requested MM Saunders to favour me with two (I should be glad of three) copies of the first volume as my friend Ablett's birthday is on the 31 of this month, and mine on the 30, and I have three friends to whom it would delight me to give them before I leave Wales. With best compliments to Mrs. James, believe me ever,

"Yrs very sincerely

"W. S. Landor

"Llambedr, Jan. 18 [1836]

"I have seen the last sheet of Vol. I, but not the short Preface sent from London.

"How can you complain of your English. There is hardly a fault to be found in the 3 volumes. I have read them a second time.

G. P. R. James, Esq.

"1 Lloyds Buildings

"Blackheath

"London"

The work appeared during the early part of 1836, and though it was received with much praise by his friends, and had many favorable reviews, the sale dragged. In October of the same year, Landor, in one of his letters to Forster, refers to an unfavorable review which appeared in Blackwood: "... I am not informed how long this Scotchman has been at work about me, but my publisher has advised me, that he loses £150. by my Pericles. So that it is probable the Edinburgh Areopagites have condemned me to a fine in my absence; for I never can allow any man to be a loser by me, and am trying to economise to the amount of this indemnity to Saunders and Otley ..." The money was in fact paid back, and yet, curiously enough, as Forster relates, Landor not only forgot, three years later, that he had received a payment for the copyright, but even that he himself had sent back the money, and was making further remittances to satisfy the supposed loss. This was stopped by a statement from Mr. Saunders, to which Landor refers in a letter to Forster: "Never, in the course of my life, was I so surprised as at the verification of my account with Saunders; for such it is. Certain I am that no part of the money was ever spent by me, nor can I possibly bring to mind either the receiving or the returning of it ..."

The first American edition of Pericles and Aspasia, in two volumes, was published by Carey, Philadelphia, 1839, the second English edition in 1849, and there have been frequent editions since, both in England and in America.

Duodecimo.

Collation: Two Volumes. Volume I: viii, 299 pp. Volume II: viii, 343 pp.

CHARLES DICKENS
(1812-1870)

An advertisement in the Times for March 26, 1836, reads:

"THE PICKWICK PAPERS.—On the 31st of March will be published, to be continued monthly, price One Shilling, the first number of the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, containing a faithful record of the Perambulations, Perils, Travels, Adventures, and Sporting Transactions of the Corresponding Members. Edited by Boz. Each monthly Part embellished with four Illustrations by Seymour. Chapman & Hall, 186 Strand, and of all booksellers."

Robert Seymour, a caricaturist, and the illustrator of such works as The Odd Volume, The Looking Glass, and Humorous Sketches, had been employed by Chapman and Hall to illustrate a comic publication called The Squib Annual; and this led him to suggest that he should make a series of Cockney sporting plates which could be furnished with letter-press. Hall applied to Dickens, then an unknown newspaper man, for the text, a "something which should be a vehicle for certain plates to be executed by Mr. Seymour." Dickens says of this proposition: "I objected.... My views being deferred to, I thought of Mr. Pickwick, and wrote the first number; from the proof-sheets of which Mr. Seymour made his drawing of the Club and his happy portrait of its founder. I connected Mr. Pickwick with a club, because of the original suggestion; and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly for the use of Mr. Seymour."

The work came out in twenty parts (parts nineteen and twenty were bound together), beginning in April, 1836, and ending with November, 1837. They were covered in light green paper bordered with a design by Seymour, and engraved by John Jackson, a pupil of Bewick and Hervey. The title reads, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club [Five lines] Edited by "Boz. With Illustrations ..."

The publication of the second number was delayed by the suicide of Seymour, whose mind gave way from overwork. This sad event was announced to the public in a note, and an apology was offered for the reduction of the number of plates from four to three. "When we state that they comprise Mr. Seymour's last efforts, and that on one of them, in particular (the embellishment of the Stroller's Tale), he was engaged up to a late hour of the night preceding his death, we feel confident that the excuse will be deemed a sufficient one."

The third and succeeding numbers contained two plates each. Those in the third part were originally executed by Robert Buss, who learned to etch in order to produce them. But he gave up the work, and his plates were replaced in later issues by others by Hablot K. Browne, or "Phiz," who did the remaining plates. The last or double part contained three plates and an engraved title-page. With it subscribers received also the printed title-page, dedication, preface, contents, Directions to the Binder and Table of Errata.

In the eighteenth number, dated September 29, 1837, the following important announcement appears:

"The subscribers to this work and the trade are respectfully informed that Nos. XIX. and XX. (with titles, contents, &c.) will be published together on 1^st of November; and that the complete volume, neatly bound in cloth, price one guinea, will be ready for delivery by the 14^th of that month, and for which country producers are requested to send early orders to their respective agents."

The venture was almost a failure at first, and it was not until the appearance of Sam Weller, with the fifth number, that the bookbinder, who had prepared four hundred copies of the first number, was obliged to increase the supply. From this time on, the demand grew until the enormous output of forty thousand was reached with the fifteenth number.

There are differences in the various accounts of the amount Dickens was to receive for his work. A letter from the publishers to him mentions their terms as nine guineas a sheet for each part consisting of a sheet and a half; fifteen guineas a number was the sum as stated by Mr. Edward Chapman to Mr. Forster; and Dickens himself, in a letter to Miss Hogarth, afterwards his wife, says, fourteen pounds a month. During publication, he received in checks from the publishers £3000. In 1837 Chapman & Hall agreed that after five years he should have a share in the copyright, on consideration that he write a similar book for which he was to receive £3000, besides having the whole copyright after five years. Forster thinks the author received, in all, £25,000, while the publishers' profits during the three years from 1836 to 1839 are said to have amounted to £14,000 on the sale of the work in numbers alone.

Chapman & Hall issued the book in volume form in 1837, at twenty-one shillings.

Mr. Frederic G. Kitton says:

"There are probably not more than a dozen copies of the first edition of "Pickwick" in existence. An examination of a number of impressions presumably of this edition results in the discovery of slight variations both in plates and text. These are especially noticeable in the illustrations, for, owing to the enormous demand, the plates were re-etched directly they showed signs of deterioration in the printing, and "Phiz," in reproducing his designs, sometimes altered them slightly. The earliest impressions of the work may be distinguished by the absence of engraved titles on the plates, and by their containing the original etchings by Seymour and Buss, not "Phiz's" replicas of them."

Octavo.

Collation: xiv pp., 1 l., 609 pp. Forty-five plates, including engraved title-page.

THOMAS CARLYLE
(1795-1881)

Carlyle went up to London with Teufelsdröckh in his satchel, to find a publisher for it. He put much confidence in the help of his friend Francis Jeffrey, the lord advocate, who exerted himself chiefly to establish relations between the author and John Murray.

Mrs. Carlyle, at home in Craigenputtoch, received the following letter from her husband, August 11, 1831:

"... After a time by some movements, I got the company dispersed, and the Advocate by himself, and began to take counsel with him about 'Teufelsdröckh.' He thought Murray, in spite of the Radicalism, would be the better publisher; to him accordingly he gave me a line, saying that I was a genius and would likely become eminent;... I directly set off with this to Albemarle Street; found Murray out; returned afterwards and found him in, gave an outline of the book, at which the Arimaspian smiled, stated also that I had nothing else to do here but the getting of it published, and was above all anxious that his decision should be given soon...."

On the 22d he wrote again:

"On Saturday morning I set out for Albemarle Street. Murray, as usual, was not in; but an answer lay for me—my poor 'Teufelsdröckh,' wrapped in new paper, with a letter stuck under the packthread. I took it with a silent fury, and walked off. The letter said he regretted exceedingly, etc.; all his literary friends were out of town; he himself occupied with a sick family in the country; that he had conceived the finest hope, etc. In short, that 'Teufelsdröckh' had never been looked into; but that if I would let him keep it for a month, he would then be able to say a word, and by God's blessing a favorable one.

"I walked on through Regent Street and looked in upon James Fraser, the bookseller. We got to talk about 'Teufelsdröckh,' when, after much hithering and thithering about the black state of trade, &c., it turned out that honest James would publish the book for me on this principle: if I would give him a sum not exceeding 150 l. sterling! 'I think you had better wait a little,' said an Edinburgh advocate to me since, when he heard of this proposal. 'Yes,' I answered, 'it is my purpose to wait to the end of eternity for it.' 'But the public will not buy books.' 'The public has done the wisest thing it could, and ought never more to buy what they call books.'

"Spurning at destiny, yet in the mildest terms taking leave of Fraser, I strode through the street carrying 'Teufelsdröckh' openly in my hand ... Having rested a little, I set out again to the Longmans, to hear what they had to say."

The Longmans, "honest, rugged, punctual-looking people," said little to the point, however, and then, through Lord Jeffrey's efforts in his behalf, Murray offered as follows: "The short of it is this: Murray will print an edition (750 copies) of Dreck on the half-profit system (that is, I getting nothing, but also giving nothing); after which the sole copyright of the book is to be mine ..."

Carlyle then tried Colburn & Bentley, but with his mind made up "unless they say about 100 l. I will prefer Murray." These negotiations came to nothing, and back he went to Murray, whose offer "is not so bad: 750 copies for the task of publishing poor Dreck, and the rest of him our own." The terms were accepted, the manuscript was sent to the printer, and a page set up, when Murray repented his bargain, which had never pleased him, and, having heard that Carlyle had carried his MS. elsewhere, he seized the opportunity to send the author a note saying that since he had, unbeknown to him, carried his book to "the greatest publishers in London, who had declined to engage in it," he must ask to have it read by some literary friend, before he could in justice to himself engage in the printing of it. The upshot was that the manuscript was returned to its author.

"The printing of 'Teufelsdröckh,'" Carlyle says to his wife, "which I announced as commencing, and even sent you a specimen of, has altogether stopped, and Murray's bargain with me has burst into air. The man behaved like a pig, and was speared, but perhaps without art; Jack and I at least laughed that night à gorge déployée at the answer I wrote his base glare of a letter: he has written again in much politer style, and I shall answer him, as McLeod advised my grandfather's people, 'sharp but mannerly.' The truth of the matter is now clear enough; Dreck cannot be disposed of in London at this time. Whether he lie in my trunk or in a bookseller's coffer seems partly indifferent. Neither, on the whole, do I know whether it is not better that we have stopped for the present. Money I was to have none; author's vanity embarked on that bottom I have almost none; nay, some time or other that the book can be so disposed of it is certain enough."

Nearly two years later, in 1833, the unlucky Dreck was published "piecemeal," in ten parts of ten pages each, in Fraser's Magazine, beginning with November and running until August, 1834. With the shrewdness of his tribe, Fraser, fearing failure, paid only twelve guineas a sheet for the work, though he had been paying its author twenty guineas a sheet, five guineas more than he paid to any other contributor. It turned out, however, that he was wise, for the great essay was not a success, even in the magazine.

"'Magazine Fraser' writes that 'Teufelsdröckh' excites the most unqualified disapprobation—à la bonne heure," said Carlyle; and again: "—Literature still all a mystery; nothing 'paying;' 'Teufelsdröckh' beyond measure unpopular; an oldest subscriber came into him and said, 'If there is any more of that d——d stuff, I will,' &c., &c.; on the other hand an order from America (Boston or Philadelphia) to send a copy of the magazine 'so long as there was anything of Carlyle's in it.' 'One spake up and the other spake down.'"

After the work had run its course in the magazine, about fifty copies were struck off from the types and stitched together for distribution among friends.

It remained to the honor of America, to print the book in 1836, through the energetic efforts of Dr. LeBaron Russell. Emerson furnished the copy and a preface; and before the end of the year he was able to announce to Carlyle the sale of the whole edition. Another edition of over a thousand copies was sold before the first English edition, "a dingy, ill-managed edition" of a thousand copies, was published anonymously by Saunders and Otley in 1838.

Octavo.

Collation: 1 l., 107 pp.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
(1803-1882)

80. Nature. | [Quotation] Boston: | James Munroe And Company. | MDCCCXXXVI.

"My little book is nearly done. Its title is 'Nature.' Its contents will not exceed in bulk Sampson Reed's 'Growth of the Mind.' My design is to follow it by another essay, 'Spirit,' and the two shall make a decent volume." Thus Emerson wrote to his brother William, from Concord, June 28, 1836.

Nature was, however, published alone in September by Metcalf, Torry and Ballou of the Cambridge Press. It received little attention except from "the representatives of orthodox opinion," who violently attacked it. Only a few hundred copies were sold, and it was twelve years before a second edition was called for.

Duodecimo.

Collation: 95 pp.

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
(1796-1859)

George Ticknor, in his life of Prescott, gives the story of the production of the History in the following words:

"The composition of the 'Conquest of Peru' was, therefore, finished within the time he had set for it a year previously, and the work being put to press without delay, the printing was completed in the latter part of March, 1847; about two years and nine months from the day when he first put pen to paper. It made just a thousand pages, exclusive of the Appendix, and was stereotyped under the careful correction and supervision of his friend Mr. Folsom of Cambridge.

"While it was passing through the press, or just as the stereotyping was fairly begun, he made a contract with the Messrs. Harper to pay for seven thousand five hundred copies on the day of publication at the rate of one dollar per copy, to be sold within two years, and to continue to publish at the same rate afterwards, or to surrender the contract to the author at his pleasure; terms, I suppose, more liberal than had ever been offered for a work of grave history on this side of the Atlantic. In London it was published by Mr. Bentley, who purchased the copyright for eight hundred pounds, under the kind auspices of Colonel Aspinwall; again a large sum, as it was already doubtful whether an exclusive privilege could be legally maintained in Great Britain by a foreigner."

The demand for the book was large: in five months five thousand copies were sold in America, and an edition of half that number sold in England. By January 1, 1860, there had been sold of the American and English editions together, 16,965 copies. It was translated into Spanish, French, German, and Dutch.

Octavo.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: xl, 527 pp. Volume II: xix, 547 pp.

EDGAR ALLAN POE
(1809-1849)

The poem first appeared in print in the columns of the New York Evening Mirror for January 29, 1845, where N. P. Willis, its editor, says in a note: "We are permitted to copy, (in advance of publication,) from the second number of the American Review, the following remarkable poem by Edgar Poe." Willis issued the poem again in the weekly edition of the Mirror, dated February 8, and Charles F. Briggs, with whom Poe afterward became associated, also published it in the Broadway Journal of the same date, crediting it to "Edgar A. Poe." Both of these weeklies seem to have appeared before the American Review came out. We are not told the reason for Mr. George H. Colton's editorial courtesy in permitting this advance publication when the second, or February number of his paper, The American Review: A Whig Journal Of Politics, Literature, Art And Science, was so soon to appear. It is a curious circumstance that Willis and Briggs gave the author's name freely, while Colton's issue, as originally intended, appeared with the pseudonym of "—— Quarles."

The poem was an immense success, and was copied far and wide in all the newspapers of the country. Writing to F. W. Thomas, May 4, Poe says:

"'The Raven' has had a great run, Thomas—but I wrote it for the express purpose of running—just as I did the 'Gold Bug,' you know. The bird beat the bug, though, all hollow."

This popularity was the poet's greatest reward, for we learn that the actual money remuneration was only ten dollars. Poe makes us think of the early writers, like Bacon and Browne, whom we have seen take to printing their books to save them from the errors of the unlicensed publisher. In a preface to this volume he writes:

"These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected while going at random 'the rounds of the press.' If what I have written is to circulate at all, I am naturally anxious that it should circulate as I wrote it...."

From the original straw-colored paper covers in which it appeared, about December, we learn that the book was issued as one of a series, Wiley And Putnam's Library Of American Books. No. VIII., and that its price was the unusual sum of thirty-one cents. Among the other volumes, its companions in the set, were Journal of an African Cruiser, edited by Nathaniel Hawthorne; Tales of Edgar A. Poe; Letters from Italy, by J. T. Headley; The Wigwam and the Cabin, by W. Gilmore Simms; and Big Abel, by Cornelius Mathews.

Duodecimo.

Collation: 4 ll., 91 pp.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË
(1816-1855)

Under date of August 24, 1847, Miss Brontë wrote a letter to Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., in which she said: "I now send you per rail a MS. entitled 'Jane Eyre,' a novel in three volumes, by Currer Bell." The novel was accepted, was printed and published by October sixteenth, and on the nineteenth the publishers received the following:

"Gentlemen,—The six copies of 'Jane Eyre' reached me this morning. You have given the work every advantage which good paper, clear type, and a seemly outside can supply;—if it fails, the fault will be with the author,—you are exempt. I now await the judgment of the press and the public. I am, Gentlemen, yours respectfully, C. Bell."

Their judgment was decisive, and the book was so great a success that a second edition, dedicated to Thackeray, was issued January 18, 1848.

Octavo.

Collation: Three volumes.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
(1807-1882)

Writing in his journal under date of October 2, 1847, Longfellow says: "Why does not Ticknor publish Evangeline? I am going to town to ask him that very question. And his answer was that he should do so without further delay." An entry, dated October 30, says, "Evangeline published." On November 8, he says: "Evangeline goes on bravely. I have received greater and warmer commendations than on any previous volume. The public takes more kindly to hexameters than I could have imagined." On November 13, a third thousand is recorded, and on April 8 of the following year we learn: "Next week Ticknor prints the sixth thousand of Evangeline, making one thousand a month since its publication."

In 1857 the following entry sums up the successful career of the poem:

"Allibone wants to get from the publishers the number of copies of my book sold up to date, the editions in this country only," and Evangeline is set down as 35,850 copies.

The poem was translated into German, Swedish, Danish, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, and French, and was made a school-book in Italy.

Sextodecimo.

Collation: 163 pp.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
(1806-1861)

85. Sonnets. | By | E. B. B. | Reading: | [Not For Publication.] 1847.

This is the first appearance in print of the Sonnets from the Portuguese which were not published until 1850, when they were issued under the title Sonnets from the Portuguese, as a part of the Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Mr. Browning told the story of the Portuguese Sonnets to Mr. Edmund Gosse, who printed the account in Critical Kit-Kats, 1896:

"The Sonnets were intended for her husband's eyes alone; in the first instance, not even for his ... Fortunately for all those who love true poetry, Mr. Browning judged rightly of the obligation laid upon him by the possession of these poems. 'I dared not,' he said, 'reserve to myself the finest sonnets written in any language since Shakespeare's.' Accordingly he persuaded his wife to commit the printing of them to her friend Miss Mitford; and in the course of the year they appeared in a slender volume entitled 'Sonnets, by E. B. B.,' with the imprint 'Reading, 1847,' and marked 'Not for publication.'"

Duodecimo.

Collation: 47 pp.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
(1819-1891)

Writing to Thomas Hughes on September 13, 1859, Lowell says: "I tried my first "Biglow Papers" in a newspaper, and found that it had a great run. So I wrote the others from time to time during the year which followed, always very rapidly, and sometimes (as "What Mr. Robinson thinks") at one sitting.

"When I came to collect them and publish them in a volume, I conceived my parson-editor with his pedantry and verbosity, his amiable vanity and superiority to the verses he was editing, as a fitting artistic background and foil."

The following extracts from letters show, in detail, the evolution of the work.

"You will find a squib of mine in this week's Courier," said he to Sidney H. Gay, on June 16, 1846, "I wish it to continue anonymous, for I wish Slavery to think it has as many enemies as possible. If I may judge from the number of persons who have asked me if I wrote it, I have struck the old hulk of the Public between wind and water...." On the last day of December, 1847, he says to C. F. Briggs:

"I am going to indulge all my fun in a volume of H. Biglow's verses which I am preparing, and which I shall edit under the character of the Rev. Mr. Wilbur ... I am going to include in the volume an essay of the reverend gentleman on the Yankee dialect, and on dialects in general, and on every thing else, and also an attempt at a complete natural history of the Humbug—which I think I shall write in Latin. The book will purport to be published at Jaalam (Mr. B's native place), and will be printed on brownish paper with those little head and tail-pieces which used to adorn our earlier publications—such as hives, scrolls, urns, and the like."

The latter part of 1848 found the poet busily engaged in getting out the book, and he wrote to Gay in September:

"This having to do with printers is dreadful business. There was a Mr. Melville who, I believe, enjoyed it, but, for my part, I am heartily sick of Typee."

In October he says:

"I should have sent you this yesterday, but it was not written, and I was working like a dog all day, preparing a glossary and an index. If I ever make another glossary or index—!" ...

"... Hosea is done with," he says in November, "and will soon be out. It made fifty pages more than I expected and so took longer." The volume appeared on the 10th, and on the 25th he again writes to Gay: "... The first edition of Hosea is nearly exhausted already."

The following retrospect, sent to the same friend on February 26, 1849, contains the lesson of experience:

"There were a great many alterations of spelling made in the plates of the "Biglow Papers," which added much to the expense. I ought not to have stereotyped at all. But we are never done with cutting eye-teeth."

George Nichols, who published the book, was at one time an owner of the University Book-store, and, later, one of the proprietors of the University Press. He was noted for his skill in proof-reading.

The printing was done by Metcalf and Company, printers to the University; and the little book came out from their hands innocent of hives, scrolls, urns, or any other ornament. Something changed the author's mind, too, regarding Jaalam as the purporting place of publication.

Duodecimo.

Collation: 12, xxxii, 163 pp.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
(1811-1863)

The name of the book, as we see it in the delightful and altogether characteristic drawing on the engraved title-page, reminds us of what Miss Kate Perry says in her reminiscences of Thackeray:

"He told me, some time afterward, that, after ransacking his brain for a name for his novel, it came upon him unawares, in the middle of the night, as if a voice had whispered, 'Vanity Fair.' He said, 'I jumped out of bed, and ran three times round my room, uttering as I went, 'Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair.'"

It has been repeated, more than once, that Vanity Fair was refused by Colburn's Magazine, and various other publishers, before Bradbury and Evans undertook it, but Vizetelly, in his Glances Back Through Seventy Years, thinks that this could not have been the case, since Thackeray did not finish the story until long after it had been accepted, and, in fact, was well along in the printer's hands. If refused, therefore, it was refused before it was finished. "I know perfectly well that after the publication commenced much of the remainder of the work was written under pressure for and from the printer, and not infrequently the first instalment of 'copy' needed to fill the customary thirty-two pages was penned while the printer's boy was waiting in the hall at Young Street."

Vizetelly also gives the following account of the final arrangements for the publication of the book:

"One afternoon, when he called in Peterborough Court he had a small brown paper parcel with him, and opened it to show me his two careful drawings for the page plates to the first number of Vanity Fair. Tied up with them was the manuscript of the earlier part of the book, of which he had several times spoken to me, referring to the quaint character that Chiswick Mall—within a stone's throw of which I was then living—still retained. His present intention, he told me, was to see Bradbury & Evans, and offer the work to them ... In little more than half an hour Thackeray again made his appearance, and, with a beaming face, gleefully informed me that he had settled the business. 'Bradbury & Evans,' he said, 'accepted so readily that I am deuced sorry I didn't ask them for another tenner. I am certain they would have given it.' He then explained that he had named fifty guineas per part, including the two sheets of letterpress, a couple of etchings, and the initials at the commencement of the chapters. He reckoned the text, I remember, at no more than five-and-twenty shillings a page, the two etchings at six guineas each, while as for the few initials at the beginnings of the chapters, he threw those in."

Following the plan of Chapman and Hall, who issued Dickens's works in monthly parts in green covers, and of Charles James Lever's publishers, who brought him out in pink, Bradbury and Evans published Vanity Fair in yellow-covered numbers dated January, 1847, to July, 1848, and costing one shilling a part. The title on these paper covers ran: Vanity Fair: Pen And Pencil Sketches Of English Society. By W. M. Thackeray [Two lines] London: Published At The Punch Office, 85, Fleet Street. [One line] 1847., and there was a woodcut vignette.

There are numerous illustrations in the text, and each part has two plates, etchings, except the last, which has three and the engraved title-page. The last part as published contained the title-page, dedication, "Before the Curtain," a preface, table of contents, and list of plates.

The earliest issues contain, on page 336, a woodcut of the Marquis of Steyne, which was afterward suppressed, the type from pages 336 to 440 being shifted to fill the vacancy. In the first edition, too, the title at the head of Chapter I is in rustic type.

At first the novel did not sell well; it was even questioned whether it might not be best to stop its publication. But later in the year, owing to some cause, perhaps the eulogistic mention in Miss Brontë's preface to Jane Eyre, or, perhaps, a favorable review in the Edinburgh Review, its success became assured.

Mrs. Carlyle, writing to her husband, says: "Very good indeed, beats Dickens out of the World."

Octavo.

Collation: xvi, 624 pp. Forty plates, including the engraved title-page.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY,
FIRST BARON MACAULAY
(1800-1859)

Trevelyan, in his Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, tells us there was no end to the trouble that the author devoted to matters which most writers are glad to leave to their publishers. "He could not rest until the lines were level to a hair's breadth, and the punctuation correct to a comma; until every paragraph concluded with a telling sentence, and every sentence flowed like water."

In a footnote he adds this quotation from one of Macaulay's letters to Mr. Longman, which, while it referred to the edition of 1858, is also indicative of his attitude toward this, the first edition:

"I have no more corrections to make at present. I am inclined to hope that the book will be as nearly faultless, as to typographical execution, as any work of equal extent that is to be found in the world."

He was apprehensive concerning the success of the book. He writes, "I have armed myself with all my philosophy for the event of failure," but his fears were groundless.

"The people of the United States," says Trevelyan, "were even more eager than the people of the United Kingdom to read about their common ancestors; with the advantage that, from the absence of an international copyright, they were able to read about them for next to nothing. On the 4th of April, 1849, Messrs. Harper, of New York, wrote to Macaulay: 'We beg you to accept herewith a copy of our cheap edition of your work. There have been three other editions published by different houses, and another is now in preparation; so there will be six different editions in the market. We have already sold forty thousand copies, and we presume that over sixty thousand copies have been disposed of. Probably, within three months of this time, the sale will amount to two hundred thousand copies. No work, of any kind, has ever so completely taken our whole country by storm.' An indirect compliment to the celebrity of the book was afforded by a desperate, and almost internecine, controversy which raged throughout the American newspapers as to whether the Messrs. Harper were justified in having altered Macaulay's spelling to suit the orthographical canons laid down in Noah Webster's dictionary."

This quotation refers to the first volume. The second volume came out in the same year, but the third and fourth did not appear until 1855. Volume five was edited by Macaulay's sister, Lady Trevelyan, in 1861. It continued the portion of the History which was fairly transcribed and revised by the author before his death.

The posthumous appearance of the last volume reminds us of what Mr. Alexander B. Grosart says in his life of Spenser, apropos of the promise on the title-page of the Fairy Queen that the work should be in twelve books fashioning twelve moral virtues:

"Than this splendid audacity I know nothing comparable, unless Lord Macaulay's opening of his History of England, wherein—without any saving clause, as Thomas Fuller would have said, of 'if the Lord will'—he pledges himself to write his great Story down to 'memories' of men 'still living.'"

Octavo.

Collation: Five volumes.

ALFRED TENNYSON,
FIRST BARON TENNYSON
(1809-1892)

89. In Memoriam. | London. | Edward Moxon, Dover Street. | 1850.

In May of the year 1850, In Memoriam was privately printed for the use of friends, and soon afterward was published in the present form, at six shillings. A second and third editions were issued in the same year. They are alike in all particulars except for the correction of two literal misprints. Though the book was anonymous, the authorship was never in doubt.

A circumstance connected with its publication, though not bibliographical in its bearing, demands a passing word. "If 'In Memoriam' were published," Hallam Tennyson says in his life of the laureate, "Moxon had promised a small yearly royalty on this and on the other poems, and so my father had decided that he could now honourably offer my mother a home. Accordingly after ten years of separation their engagement was renewed ... Moxon now advanced £300—so my uncle Charles told a friend,—at all events £300 were in my father's bank in his name." With this and their small incomes combined they decided to marry. The marriage took place June 13, the month that saw the publication of "In Memoriam."

Octavo.

Collation: vii, 210 pp.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
(1804-1864)

James T. Fields, in his little life of Hawthorne, tells of a visit to Salem to see the author. He goes on to say:

"... I caught sight of a bureau or set of drawers near where we were sitting; and immediately it occurred to me that hidden away somewhere in that article of furniture was a story or stories by the author of the 'Twice-Told Tales,' and I became so positive of it that I charged him vehemently with the fact. He seemed surprised, I thought, but shook his head again; and I rose to take my leave ... I was hurrying down the stairs when he called after me from the chamber, asking me to stop a moment. Then quickly stepping into the entry with a roll of manuscript in his hands, he said: 'How in Heaven's name did you know the thing was there? As you have found me out, take what I have written, and tell me, after you get home and have time to read it, if it is good for anything ...' On my way up to Boston I read the germ of 'The Scarlet Letter'; before I slept that night I wrote him a note all aglow with admiration of the marvellous story he had put into my hands, and told him that I would come again to Salem the next day and arrange for its publication."

It was Hawthorne's first intention to make the romance one of a volume of several short stories, because, as he remarks to Mr. Fields:

"A hunter loads his gun with a bullet and several buckshot; and, following his sagacious example, it was my purpose to conjoin the one long story with half a dozen shorter ones, so that, failing to kill the public outright with my biggest and heaviest lump of lead, I might have other chances with the smaller bits, individually and in the aggregate." But this plan was finally changed and it was decided to publish the story alone. There was then some talk about a title for it. "In this latter event" (the event of publishing alone), "it appears to me that the only proper title for the book would be 'The Scarlet Letter,' for 'The Custom House' is merely introductory ..." And so it was decided.

"If 'The Scarlet Letter' is to be the title," he asked Mr. Fields, "would it not be well to print it on the title-page in red ink? I am not quite sure about the good taste of so doing, but it would certainly be piquant and appropriate, and, I think, attractive to the great gull whom we are endeavoring to circumvent." The reader might ask the bibliophile if the red title line, for it was printed in that way, really did have anything to do with the circumventing which eventually took place.

On February 4, 1850, Hawthorne wrote to Horatio Bridges:

"I finished my book yesterday, one end being in the press in Boston, while the other was in my head here in Salem; so that, as you see, the story is at least fourteen miles long."

The book appeared about March 16. As Mr. George Parsons Lathrop points out, there seems to have been no expectation of a very successful sale, in spite of Mr. Fields's enthusiasm; but to the surprise of all, the whole issue was exhausted in ten days. A second edition, with a preface dated March 30, was soon published, making, with the first, a total number of five thousand copies. All these were printed by Metcalf & Company of Cambridge. The third issue was entirely reset and electrotyped, and numbered 307 pages.

The second issue, beside the preface, shows numerous changes, especially in words. Among these the bookseller's favorite catch-word "reduplicate" (p. 21, l. 20) was changed to "repudiate." In late copies of the stereotyped form, this word was changed to "resuscitate."

Duodecimo.

Collation: vi, 322 pp.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
(1811-1896)

The first chapter of Uncle Tom appeared June, 1851, in The National Era of Washington, a magazine edited by Gamaliel Bailey, and one of the ablest mediums of opinion of the anti-slavery party. It was finished in April, 1852. Mrs. Stowe received $300 for her labor.

The interest which the story awakened led John Punchard Jewett, a member of the first anti-slavery society in New England, and himself a frequent contributor to the newspapers on anti-slavery topics, to offer to bring it out immediately in book form, giving the author ten per cent. on the sales. The proposition was accepted, and the book was published March 20, 1852. The very remarkable sale of three thousand copies the first day was only an earnest of what was to happen. Over 300,000 copies were sold within the year, and eight power-presses running day and night could hardly supply the demand.

There is a vignette on the title-pages signed by the engravers, Baker-Smith, and each volume contains three unsigned plates, evidently by the same artist, and engraved by the same hands as the vignette. The volumes were bound in black with the vignette of the title-page stamped on the covers, the front impression being in gold.

Octavo.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: 312 pp. Volume II: 322 pp. Six plates.

JOHN RUSKIN
(1819-1900)

These fine volumes, printed by Spottiswoode and Shaw, have a particularly clean and clear type-page, and are excellent in press-work. It is not the type, however, that demands our especial attention, but the illustrations with which the work is liberally furnished. These distinguish it from anything we have hitherto seen in our list of books. The plates and cuts, made by various processes, mezzo-tinting, lithography, line engraving and wood-cutting, mark most clearly the advance in bookmaking which had taken place within the half century. Hitherto we have had illustrations for their own sakes, or for the ornamentation of the books they are in, and depending for their existence solely upon the liberality and intelligence of the publisher; but here we have illustrations introduced into the book for the sake of the text, of which they are an integral part. Ruskin's own words about them, as found in the Preface, are instructive:

"It was of course inexpedient to reduce drawings of crowded details to the size of an octavo volume,—I do not say impossible, but inexpedient; requiring infinite pains on the part of the engraver, with no result except farther pain to the beholder. And as, on the other hand, folio books are not easy reading, I determined to separate the text and the unreduceable plates. I have given, with the principal text, all the illustrations absolutely necessary to the understanding of it, and, in the detached work, such additional text as had special reference to the larger illustrations.

"A considerable number of these larger plates were at first intended to be executed in tinted lithography; but, finding the result unsatisfactory, I have determined to prepare the principal subjects for mezzotinting,—a change of method requiring two new drawings to be made for every subject; one a carefully penned outline for the etcher, and then a finished drawing upon the etching ...

"For the illustrations of the body of the work itself, I have used any kind of engraving which seemed suited to the subjects—line and mezzotint, on steel, with mixed lithographs and woodcuts, at a considerable loss of uniformity in the appearance of the volume, but, I hope, with advantage, in rendering the character of the architecture it describes."

"The illustrations to the new book," Collingwood adds, "were a great advance upon the rough soft-ground etchings of the Seven Lamps. He secured the services of some of the finest engravers who ever handled the tools of their art. The English school of engravers was then in its last and most accomplished period. Photography had not yet begun to supersede it; and the demand for delicate work in book illustration had encouraged minuteness and precision of handling to the last degree. In this excessive refinement there were the symptoms of decline; but it was most fortunate for Mr. Ruskin that his drawings could be interpreted by such men as Armytage and Cousen, Cuff and Le Keux, Boys and Lupton ... The mere fact of their skill in translating a sketch from a note-book into a gem-like vignette, encouraged him to ask for more; so that some of the subjects which became the most elaborate were at first comparatively rough drawings, and were gradually worked up from successive retouchings of the proofs by the infinite patience of both parties. In other cases, working drawings were prepared by Mr. Ruskin, as refined as the plates."

"Like much else of his work, these plates for 'Stones of Venice' were in advance of the times. The publishers thought them 'caviare to the general,' so Mr. J. J. Ruskin told his son; but gave it as his own belief that 'some dealers in Ruskins and Turners in 1890 will get great prices for what at present will not sell.'"

An "Advertisement" in the second volume tells us, "It was originally intended that this Work should consist of two volumes only; the subject has extended to three. The second volume, however, will conclude the account of the ancient architecture of Venice. The third will embrace the Early, the Roman, and the Grotesque Renaissance; and an Index...."

The first volume, called The Foundations, and having twenty-one plates, and the second, called The Sea-Stories, with twenty plates, each cost two guineas. The third volume, called The Fall, with twelve plates, cost a guinea and a half. They were bound in cloth, stamped in gold, with the "Lion of St. Mark" on the back. A few copies of both volumes one and two were issued in two parts. The first volume ran into a second edition in 1858, and the second and third were reissued in 1867.

Octavo.

Collation: Three volumes. Illustrations. Fifty-three plates.

ROBERT BROWNING
(1812-1889)

This was the only edition of Men and Women published separately. The poems it contained were afterward incorporated in collected editions; with the exception of In a Balcony, they were distributed under the respective headings of Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Romances, and Men and Women.

The book was issued in a green cloth binding, at twelve shillings a copy.

Octavo.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: iv, 260 pp. Volume II: iv, 241 pp.

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
(1814-1877)

Motley wrote a letter to his wife, dated at London, May 10, 1854, in which he says that he has had the matter of copyright looked up, and finds that the English law will protect him if he publish his book recently completed, first, by however small an interval, in England. He then carried the manuscript to Murray, who received him civilly, and professed interest in his subject, promising an answer in a fortnight. But the answer, when it came, was unfavorable, and, being of the mind that "if Murray declines ... I shall doubt very much whether anybody will accept, because history is very much in his line," he seems to have tried no farther, but to have arranged with Mr. John Chapman to publish the Dutch Republic himself.

Throughout the transaction Motley was very modest and not at all sanguine for the success of his venture.

"It cannot take in England," he says to his mother in 1855, "and moreover the war, Macaulay's new volumes, and Prescott's, will entirely absorb the public attention." And again to his father, May 13, 1856, he says:

"I have heard nothing from Chapman since the book was published, but I feel sure from the silence that very few copies have been sold. I shall be surprised if a hundred copies are sold at the end of a year."

In reality, the book, as Dr. Holmes said, was "a triumph." Seventeen thousand copies were sold in England alone during the first year, and in America, where it was issued by the Harpers, just long enough after the English edition to fulfill all the demands of the copyright law, it was equally popular. Mr. Murray afterward asked to be allowed to publish The History of the United Netherlands, and expressed his regret "at what he candidly called his mistake in the first instance." Prescott, Motley's friend and generous rival, wrote from Boston, April 18, 1856:

"You have good reason to be pleased with the reception the book has had from the English press, considering that you had no one particularly to stand godfather to your bantling, but that it tumbled into the world almost without the aid of a midwife. Under these circumstances success is a great triumph...."

Octavo.

Collation: Three volumes.

GEORGE ELIOT
MARY ANN or MARIAN CROSS
(1819-1880)

Scenes from Clerical Life had appeared in the early part of January, 1858, and had proved an unexpected success, but the name of its author, concealed under a pseudonym, long proved a mystery.

"The first volume [of Adam Bede]," says Mrs. Cross, "was written at Richmond, and given to Blackwood in March. He expressed great admiration of its freshness and vividness, but seemed to hesitate about putting it in the Magazine, which was the form of publication he, as well as myself, had previously contemplated. He still wished to have it for the Magazine, but desired to know the course of the story. At present he saw nothing to prevent its reception in 'Maga,' but he would like to see more. I am uncertain whether his doubts rested solely on Hetty's relation to Arthur, or whether they were also directed towards the treatment of Methodism by the Church. I refused to tell my story beforehand, on the ground that I would not have it judged apart from my treatment, which alone determines the moral quality of art; and ultimately I proposed that the notion of publication in 'Maga' should be given up, and that the novel should be published in three volumes at Christmas, if possible. He assented."

"... When, on October 29, I had written to the end of the love-scene at the Farm between Adam and Dinah, I sent the MS. to Blackwood, since the remainder of the third volume could not affect the judgement passed on what had gone before. He wrote back in warm admiration, and offered me, on the part of the firm, £800 for four years' copyright. I accepted the offer ... The book would have been published at Christmas, or rather early in December, but that Bulwer's 'What will he do with it?' was to be published by Blackwood at that time, and it was thought that this novel might interfere with mine."

The book was published the first day of January with the still unpenetrated pseudonym on the title-page. It cost thirty one shillings and six pence. The advance subscriptions amounted to 730 copies, and the following note, written March 16, gives the history of its success:

"Blackwood writes to say I am 'a popular author as well as a great author.' They printed 2,090 of 'Adam Bede,' and have disposed of more than 1800, so that they are thinking of a second edition."

In May, Blackwood proposed to add, at the end of the year, £400 to the £800 originally given for the copyright. A fourth edition of 5000 volumes was issued in 1859, all of which were sold in a fortnight; a seventh was printed the same year, and in October Blackwood felt justified in proposing to pay £800 more at the beginning of the new year. The sale amounted to 16,000 volumes in one year.

Octavo.

Collation: Three volumes.

CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN
(1809-1882)

The simplicity and honesty of Darwin's character are nowhere more clearly seen than in his correspondence over the production of this book, which, from its unorthodoxy, he feared might expose others as well as himself to censure. For example, he says in a letter of March 28, 1859, to Sir Charles Lyell, the famous geologist, who made the arrangements for the publication of the work:

"P.S. Would you advise me to tell Murray that my book is not more un-orthodox than the subject makes inevitable ... Or had I better say nothing to Murray, and assume that he cannot object to this much unorthodoxy, which in fact is not more than any Geological Treatise which runs slap counter to Genesis."

Afterward, in a letter to J. D. Hooker, under date of April 2, 1859, he says:

"... I wrote to him [Mr. Murray] and gave him the headings of the chapters, and told him he could not have the MSS. for ten days or so; and this morning I received a letter, offering me handsome terms, and agreeing to publish without seeing the MS.! So he is eager enough; I think I should have been cautious, anyhow, but, owing to your letter, I told him most explicitly that I accepted his offer solely on condition that, after he has seen part or all the MS., he has full power of retracting. You will think me presumptuous, but I think my book will be popular to a certain extent (enough to ensure [against] heavy loss) amongst scientific and semiscientific men.... Anyhow, Murray ought to be the best judge, and if he chooses to publish it, I think I may wash my hands of all responsibility...."

His views on the success of the book are worth recording. To Murray he writes, April 5, 1859: "It may be conceit, but I believe the subject will interest the public, and I am sure that the views are original. If you think otherwise, I must repeat my request that you will freely reject my work; and though I shall be a little disappointed, I shall be in no way injured." And again to J. D. Hooker: "... Please do not say to any one that I thought my book on Species would be fairly popular, and have a fairly remunerative sale (which was the height of my ambition), for if it proves a dead failure, it would make me the more ridiculous."

After the book went to press he found it necessary to make many corrections involving no slight extra expense; without waiting for Murray to complain he took the initiative in setting the matter upon the proper footing in the following manner, in a letter written June 14, 1859:

"P.S. I have been looking at the corrections, and considering them. It seems to me that I shall put you to quite unfair expense. If you please I should like to enter into some such arrangement as the following:

"When work completed, you to allow in the account a fairly moderately heavy charge for corrections, and all excess over that to be deducted from my profits, or paid by me individually."

"... But you are really too generous about the, to me, scandalously heavy corrections. Are you not acting unfairly towards yourself? Would it not be better at least to share the £72 8s.? I shall be fully satisfied, for I had no business to send, though quite unintentionally and unexpectedly, such badly composed MS. to the printers."

The first edition, a child, Darwin calls it, in whose appearance he takes infinite pride and pleasure, was published November 24:

"It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the first highly successful. The first small edition of 1250 copies was sold on the day of publication, and a second edition of 3000 copies soon afterward. Sixteen thousand copies have now (1876) been sold in England; and considering how stiff a book it is, this is a large sale. It has been translated into almost every European tongue, even into such languages as Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. It has also, according to Miss Bird, been translated into Japanese much studied. Even an essay in Hebrew has appeared on it, showing that the theory is contained in the Old Testament!"

The second edition of 3000 copies, only a reprint, yet with a few important corrections, was issued January 7, 1860. An edition of 2500 copies was issued in the United States, where it enjoyed great popularity. "I never dreamed," said he, "of my book being so successful with general readers; I believe I should have laughed at the idea of sending the sheets to America."

The sum of £180 was received by the author for the first edition, and £636 13s., for the second.

Duodecimo.

Collation: ix, 502 pp. Folded plate.

EDWARD FITZGERALD
(1809-1883)

Fitzgerald first offered his translation to the editor of Fraser's Magazine, who returned it after holding it a long time, apparently afraid to publish it. It was not until years afterward that the poet, having nearly doubled the number of the verses, issued it himself, anonymously, inserting in the imprint, without even asking permission, the name of Bernard Quaritch.

The little pamphlet in brown paper, with its eleven pages of biography, and five pages of notes, against sixteen pages of poem, was not attractive in appearance; and we are told that it was not advertised in any way except by entry among the Oriental numbers of Quaritch's catalogue. So it is really not to be greatly wondered at that its sale was slow, even though the price was set as low as five shillings. Two hundred copies remaining on his hands, Quaritch, who had consented to act as bookseller, finally resorted to the expedient of offering them at half-a-crown, then at a shilling, then at sixpence, until finally they were cleared out at a penny a volume.

Those who read it at this price acted as leaven, and nine years afterward, in 1868, a second edition was called for; a third was published in 1872, and a fourth in 1879. These were all issued by Quaritch at his own expense, and all without the translator's name. Quaritch paid Fitzgerald a small honorarium, which he promptly gave away in charity.

Octavo.

Collation: xiii, 21 pp.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN,
CARDINAL
(1801-1890)

The pamphlet "What, Then, Does Dr. Newman Mean?" A Reply to a Pamphlet lately published by Dr. Newman. By the Rev. Charles Kingsley., was issued in March, 1864. Cardinal Newman's rejoinder took the form of a series of pamphlets. The first appeared on Thursday, April 21, and its brown paper cover bore the title given above, with the additional line, Pt. I. Mr. Kingsley's Method of Disputation. Thereafter, on successive Thursdays, until June 16, the following numbers appeared: Pt. II. True Mode Of Meeting Mr. Kingsley. Pt. III-VI. History Of My Religious Opinions. Pt. VII. General Answer To Mr. Kingsley. Appendix. Answer in Detail To Mr. Kingsley's Accusations.

A title-page and "Contents" were issued with the Appendix. Parts I, II, and III cost a shilling each, Parts IV, V, and VII, two shillings each, Part VI, and the Appendix, each two shillings sixpence.

The parts were issued afterward in a cloth binding. In later editions almost all of Parts I and II, and about half of the Appendix were omitted, while some new matter was added in the form of notes.

Octavo.

Collation: iv, 430, 127 pp.

MATTHEW ARNOLD
(1822-1888)

The first edition contained a satirical and not altogether tasteful preface which, Arnold said in a letter to his mother before the book was out, "will make you laugh." But later, in a letter to Lady de Rothschild written February 11, 1865, he says of it: "I had read the Preface to a brother and sister of mine, and they received it in such solemn silence that I began to tremble...." The silence of his friends and the criticism of others produced their effect upon him, and he writes again, to Lady de Rothschild: "I think if I republish the book I shall leave out some of the preface and notes, as being too much of mere temporary matter ..."

The volume contained nine essays, afterward made ten.

Professor Saintsbury says, in reviewing the book:

"I am afraid it must be taken as only too strong a confirmation of Mr. Arnold's belief as to the indifference of the English people to criticism that no second edition of the book was called for till four years were past, no third for ten, and no fourth for nearly twenty."

We get an intimation of the terms on which the book was published from the following note to Miss Quillinan, dated March 8, 1865:

"The book is Macmillan's, not mine, as my Poems were, and I have had so few copies at my own disposal that they have not even sufficed to go the round of my own nearest relations, to whom I have always been accustomed to send what I write."

Octavo.

Collation: xx, 302 pp.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
(1807-1892)

It was at first proposed to publish the poem with illustrations by Felix Octavius Darley, who so successfully illustrated Cooper, Irving, Longfellow, Lossing, and many others; but, for some reason, this idea was abandoned, and illustration of the work was reduced to a vignette showing "a view of the old farm house in a snow storm, copied from a photograph ..." It was drawn by Harry Fenn. We might regret that we are thus the losers of some characteristic work by Darley, but, on the other hand, we must agree with Whittier, who, when referring to the proposed illustrations of The Pageant, published later, said: "I know of no one who could do it, however, so well as Harry Fenn." The bit of work reproduced here is in its way quite as worthy of commendation as that drawn by this "Nestor of his guild," for Ballads of New England, 1869, and so appreciatively reviewed by Mr. William Dean Howells in The Atlantic for December.

The poet took an unusual interest in the make-up of his book. For example, he says of the vignette:

"In the picture of the old home, the rim of hemlocks, etc., at the foot of the high hill which rises abruptly to the left, is not seen. They would make a far better snow picture than the oaks which are in the view."

His remarks, too, about his portrait are particularly entertaining.

"I don't know about the portrait. At first thought, it strikes me that it would be rather out of place at the head of a new venture in rhyme. I don't want to run the risk of being laughed at. However, do as thee likes about it. Put thyself in the place of Mrs. Grundy, and see if it will be safe for any 'counterfeit presentment' to brave the old lady's criticism."

Mr. Fields evidently dared to add the portrait. It is a steel engraving, and bears, besides the name, the following inscription: "Engraved By H. W. Smith. From a Photograph By Hawes." The book is further embellished by a woodcut head-piece and an initial letter, representing snow scenes.

From other letters we learn that Whittier liked the page and type of the volume, and in this he showed himself a good judge. His opinion is confirmed by those who see in the book an example worthy of its publishers, all of whose productions, issued at this period, are good, while some are beautiful in their simplicity and elegance. When the matter of paper was brought up, the author said, "Don't put the poem on tinted or fancy paper, let it be white as the snow it tells of." Fifty copies were printed on large paper, and were probably given by the poet only to his friends. These embodied all the corrections afterward incorporated in the regular editions.

Whittier's feeling for appropriateness is shown also in the following quotation:

"I wish it could come out in season for winter fireside reading—the very season for it.... I shall dedicate it to my brother, and shall occupy one page with quotations from Cor. Agrippa, and from Emerson's 'Snow Storm.' ..."

He changed his mind about the dedication, however, for the book is inscribed "To the memory of the household it describes."

Among the errors which crept into the poem, one, the phrase "Pindus-born Araxes," was afterward corrected to "Pindus-born Arachthus"; and another,

"The wedding knell and dirge of death,"

held its ground from 1866 until 1893.

Whittier's share in the profits of Snow-Bound, we are told, amounted to ten thousand dollars.

Collation: 52 pp. Portrait.

THE FEDERALIST

TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT(1721-1771)

ADAM SMITH(1723-1790)

EDWARD GIBBON(1737-1794)

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN(1751-1816)

WILLIAM COWPER(1731-1800)

ROBERT BURNS(1759-1796)

GILBERT WHITE(1720-1793)

EDMUND BURKE(1729-1797)

THOMAS PAINE(1737-1809)

JAMES BOSWELL(1740—1795)

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH(1770-1850) ANDSAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE(1772-1834)

WASHINGTON IRVING(1783-1859)

GEORGE GORDON BYRON,SIXTH BARON(1788-1824)

JANE AUSTEN(1775-1817)

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE(1772-1834)

SIR WALTER SCOTT(1771-1832)

JOHN KEATS(1795-1821)

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY(1792-1822)

CHARLES LAMB(1775-1834)

SAMUEL PEPYS(1633-1703)

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER(1789-1851)

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR(1775—1864)

CHARLES DICKENS(1812-1870)

THOMAS CARLYLE(1795-1881)

RALPH WALDO EMERSON(1803-1882)

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT(1796-1859)

EDGAR ALLAN POE(1809-1849)

CHARLOTTE BRONTË(1816-1855)

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW(1807-1882)

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING(1806-1861)

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL(1819-1891)

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY(1811-1863)

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY,FIRST BARON MACAULAY(1800-1859)

ALFRED TENNYSON,FIRST BARON TENNYSON(1809-1892)

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE(1804-1864)

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE(1811-1896)

JOHN RUSKIN(1819-1900)

ROBERT BROWNING(1812-1889)

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY(1814-1877)

GEORGE ELIOTMARY ANN or MARIAN CROSS(1819-1880)

CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN(1809-1882)

EDWARD FITZGERALD(1809-1883)

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN,CARDINAL(1801-1890)

MATTHEW ARNOLD(1822-1888)

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER(1807-1892)

TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT
(1721-1771)

ADAM SMITH
(1723-1790)

EDWARD GIBBON
(1737-1794)

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
(1751-1816)

WILLIAM COWPER
(1731-1800)

ROBERT BURNS
(1759-1796)

GILBERT WHITE
(1720-1793)

EDMUND BURKE
(1729-1797)

THOMAS PAINE
(1737-1809)

JAMES BOSWELL
(1740—1795)

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
(1770-1850) AND
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
(1772-1834)

WASHINGTON IRVING
(1783-1859)

GEORGE GORDON BYRON,
SIXTH BARON
(1788-1824)

JANE AUSTEN
(1775-1817)

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
(1772-1834)

SIR WALTER SCOTT
(1771-1832)

JOHN KEATS
(1795-1821)

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
(1792-1822)

CHARLES LAMB
(1775-1834)

SAMUEL PEPYS
(1633-1703)

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
(1789-1851)

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
(1775—1864)

CHARLES DICKENS
(1812-1870)

THOMAS CARLYLE
(1795-1881)

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
(1803-1882)

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
(1796-1859)

EDGAR ALLAN POE
(1809-1849)

CHARLOTTE BRONTË
(1816-1855)

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
(1807-1882)

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
(1806-1861)

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
(1819-1891)

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
(1811-1863)

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY,
FIRST BARON MACAULAY
(1800-1859)

ALFRED TENNYSON,
FIRST BARON TENNYSON
(1809-1892)

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
(1804-1864)

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
(1811-1896)

JOHN RUSKIN
(1819-1900)

ROBERT BROWNING
(1812-1889)

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
(1814-1877)

GEORGE ELIOT
MARY ANN or MARIAN CROSS
(1819-1880)

CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN
(1809-1882)

EDWARD FITZGERALD
(1809-1883)

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN,
CARDINAL
(1801-1890)

MATTHEW ARNOLD
(1822-1888)

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
(1807-1892)