At the door the carts are waiting ready to drive off with the parcels to the different railway termini, and by about a quarter to six all the first trains out of London are supplied, and in less than two hours the whole kingdom has been fed with morning newspapers, including between 20,000 and 30,000 copies of the Times.
This scene occurs every week-day morning, but on Friday afternoon, on the arrival of the weekly papers, the bustle of business is even greater, and the parcels (those for the post only) are removed by fourteen vans sent from the General Post Office.
In connection with the “Railway Libraries,” it may be interesting to learn something of the publisher who has identified them with his business. Mr. George Routledge is a native of Cumberland—a county, perhaps, as much as any other, famous for the commercial success of its natives—who, after serving his apprenticeship at Carlisle, came up to London, and obtained employment in the house of Baldwin and Craddock. Soon, however, he opened a little shop of his own in Ryder’s Court, Leicester Square, for the sale of cheap and second-hand books. Here, however, at first he had much spare time on his hands, and he managed to procure a subordinate position in the Tithe Office. The work was not heavy, and the extra salary enabled him to increase his legitimate business. During the holiday time granted him by the Office, he made two or three journeys of exploration into the country, and found that a wide field existed there for a venturous and indomitable bookseller. Accordingly, he set to work to buy remainders, and having by degrees established agencies in the country, the young and almost unknown bookseller of Ryder’s Court was able to compete in the auction-rooms, and generally with success, against Mr. Bohn and other influential members of the trade—much to their astonishment, and not a little to their consternation. It was now time to give up the aid of the Tithe Office, and in 1845 Mr. Routledge moved to larger premises in Soho Square, and in 1848 Mr. William Warne, his brother-in-law, and for long his assistant, was admitted into partnership, being joined by Mr. F. Warne, three years later, when the firm moved again to Farringdon Street.
While at Soho Square, the publications of Messrs. Routledge and Warne had consisted chiefly of reprints, and here the remainder trade had been vastly extended, but now they began to enter into direct dealings with noted authors on a scale that fully equalled the transactions of the first publishing firms. Perhaps the boldest of their early ventures was the offer of £20,000 to Sir E. Bulwer Lytton for the right of issuing a cheap series of his works for the term of ten years, from 1853–1863. In spite of the enormous outlay they were very willing, on the expiry of the time, to take a fresh lease of the popular volumes; so that an offer originally deemed by the trade to be Quixotic, if not ruinous, must have reaped the success that its liberality and boldness deserved; and by their association with Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, a great prestige was at once acquired. Similar arrangements were made with other distinguished novelists, nearly all of whom we have met before in our previous article on Colburn—Mr. G. P. R. James, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and Mr. Howard Russell; while these successful re-issues were quickly followed by the publication of original works by Mayne Reed, Grant, and others, and by the first English edition of many of Prescott’s and Longfellow’s productions.
The various popular series known as the “Railway Library,” the “Popular Library,” &c., comprising many hundred volumes of standard works, afforded the chief business at Smith’s bookstalls, and were, through Mr. Routledge’s complete network of agents and connections, scattered broadcast over the country. Among the first books they brought out at a shilling were the works of Fenimore Cooper, Captain Marryat, Washington Irving, and Mrs. Stowe. Of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” half-a-million copies are said to have been sold. Of Russell’s “Narrative of the Crimean War,” 20,000; of Soyer’s “Shilling Cookery,” 250,000; and of “Rarey on Horse Training,” 150,000 copies were disposed of in a very few weeks. As an example of the energy and enterprise of the firm, it is stated that when the copy of “Queechy” was received upon one Monday morning, it was at once placed in the printer’s hands; on Thursday the sheets were at the binder’s, and on the Monday following 20,000 copies had been disposed of to the trade.
Besides these cheap works, Mr. Routledge has issued a multitude of more expensive volumes, illustrated by the best artists, and “got up” in the most luxurious styles. Among these it will be enough here to mention his numerous Shakespeares, Wood’s “Natural History” and Wood’s “Natural History of Man,” and Routledge’s “English Poets.” How extensive the Fine Art business of the firm must have been may be gathered from the fact that before 1855 they had paid one engraving house—the Messrs. Dalziel Brothers—upwards of £50,000.
In 1854, Mr. Routledge established a branch house at New York, and in 1865, Mr. F. Warne—his brother had previously died—on the termination of the partnership, established a fresh business in Bedford Street, Covent Garden. With his two sons—Mr. Robert and Mr. Edmund Routledge—the founder now carries on the business at Broadway, Ludgate Hill, having removed thither when the railway improvements took place in Farringdon Street.
Note.—For these statistics and much of our sketch we are indebted to a writer in the Bookseller, who “obtained the information from trustworthy sources.”
