PROVINCIAL BOOKSELLERS.
York: Gent and Burdekin.
Newcastle: Goading, Bryson, Bewick, and Charnley.
Glasgow: Fowlis and Collins.
Liverpool: Johnson.
Dublin: Duffy.
Derby: Mozley, Richardson, and Bemrose.
Manchester: Harrop, Barker, Timperley, and the Heywoods.
Birmingham: Hutton, Baskerville, and “The Educational Trading Co.”
Exeter: Brice.
Bristol: Cottle.
In this short chapter on provincial bookselling, we shall be necessarily obliged to confine our notice to those representatives of the trade in the larger country towns who were characteristically as well as bibliopolically famous—who, with their native talent, determination, and endurance, would have succeeded in any walk of life, had they not, fortunately for the interest of our history, embraced the profession of bookselling.
In old days, York was the natural capital of the North of England; a position acquired, of course, in times of ecclesiastical supremacy, but still retained for centuries after the Reformation. When the cost and difficulty of transit were great, the country folk looked to their own capital cities to supply them with literary food, and the annals of bookselling at York go back to nearly as ancient a date as those of London; and, indeed, Thomas Gent, whom we select as our representative of the York booksellers, might have figured in the earlier portion of our introductory chapter, had he not been reserved for a more fitting place here.
Thomas Gent, though of a Staffordshire family, was born in Dublin, and was apprenticed by his parents, poor though industrious people, to a printer in that city. In 1710, after three years’ brutal treatment from his employers, he ran away to London, where, as he was not a freeman of the city, he lived upon what he calls “smouting work” for four years, and then accepted a situation with Mr. White of York, who, as a reward for printing the Prince of Orange’s declaration when all the London printers were afraid, had been created King’s printer for York and five other counties. White must have enjoyed plenty of business, there being few printers out of London at that time—“None,” says Gent, “I am sure at Chester, Liverpool, Whitehaven, Preston, Manchester, Kendal, and Leeds.” When Gent, terminating his long walk from London, arrived at York, the door was opened by “Mistress White’s head maiden, who is now my dear spouse,” but he had to wait nearly as long a time as Jacob served for Rachel before he could claim “my dearest.”
Gent was as happy in York as he could well be, was earning money and respected by all, when his parents bade him come back to Dublin, and what made his departure grievous?—“I scarce knew, however, through respect of Mrs. Alice Guy.... Indeed I was not very forward in love or desire of matrimony till I knew the world better, and consequently should be more able to provide such a handsome maintenance as I confess I had ambition enough to desire.... However, I told her (because my irresolution should not anticipate her advancement) that I should respect her as one of the dearest of friends; and receiving a little dog from her, as a companion on the road, I had the honour to be accompanied as far as Bramham Moor by my rival” (his master’s grandson).
At Dublin he was soon threatened with seizure for having broken his apprenticeship, and though his friends offered to buy his freedom, he had received a letter from his dearest at York, saying he was expected there, and he could not resist the opportunity of meeting her again. His friends were much concerned at parting with him so soon, “but my unlucky whelp that had torn my new hat to pieces seemed no wise affected by my taking boat; so I let the rascal stay with my dear parents, who were fond of him for my sake, as he was of them for his own.”
After a stay of a few months at York, he came to London, resolved to scrape and save money enough to warrant him offering a home to “Mrs. Alice Guy,” and in 1817 he became free of the City of London, and set to work in grim earnest, “many times from five in the morning till twelve at night, and frequently without food from breakfast till five or six in the evening, through hurry with hawkers;” for at times he was in a ballad-house, now toiling at case, now writing “last words and confessions,” now reporting sermons “for a crown piece and a pair of breeches”—(profitable penny-a-lining that!)—again printing treasonable papers, for which he was seized by the authorities; and pirating and abridging “Robinson Crusoe,” the first part of which appeared in 1717, for which greater crime he went scot free. Occasionally he went home, but scarcely found it worth his while to stay in Dublin, and his parents’ “melting tears caused mine to flow, and bedewed my pillow every night after that I lodged with them. ‘What, Tommy,’ my mother would sometimes say, ‘this English damsel of yours, I suppose, is the chiefest reason why you slight us and your native country! Well,’ added she, ‘the ways of Providence are unsearchable.’”