Another well-known Liverpool bookseller was “Dandy” Cruikshank, of Castle Street, who maintained that he was the handsomest man in England, and whose vanity extended to his trade, for his specialities were books bound in pink and orange.
At the present time there are about sixty booksellers in Liverpool; and Mr. Edward Howell, an apprentice of Johnson’s, possesses the largest stock, consisting of 100,000 volumes, and is known also as a religious publisher. Mr. Philip, another leading bookseller, has two establishments in Liverpool, and a branch house in London, while Mr. Cornish, of Holborn, has an establishment in Liverpool, as well as in Dublin.
Crossing the Channel for a moment, we have an opportunity of saying something of the Dublin booksellers; but we shall not be detained long, as, in this branch of industry, the Irish capital presents a striking contrast to the Scottish. In the interval between the cessation of the licensing system and the Copyright Act of the 8th Anne, there was no legal protection for literary property, and book-pirates consequently abounded. One of the tribe has been celebrated by Dunton: “Mr. Lee, in Lombard Street—such a pirate, such a cormorant never was before—copies, books, men, ships, all was one; he held no propriety, right or wrong, good or bad, till at last he began to be known; and the booksellers, not enduring so ill a man among them, to disgrace them, spewed him out, and off he marched for Ireland, where he acted as felonious Lee (!) as he did in London.” There, however, till the Act of Union, in 1801, book-pirates abounded, greatly to the discouragement of native talent, and even of native industry, for Gent tells us repeatedly that it was almost impossible for a journeyman printer to earn wherewithall to exist on in the Dublin printing offices. In 1753 we find Samuel Richardson publishing a pamphlet—“The History of Sir Charles Grandison before Publication by certain Booksellers in Dublin.” It appears that sheets had been stolen from Richardson’s warehouse, and that three Irish booksellers each produced cheap editions of nearly half the entire novel, before a single volume had appeared in England. There was no legal remedy; but “what,” asks the Gray’s Inn Journal indignantly, “what then should be said of Exshaw, Wilson, and Saunders, booksellers in Dublin, and perpetrators of this vile act of piracy? They should be expelled from the Republic of Letters as literary Goths and Vandals, who are ready to invade the property of every man of genius.” With the Act of Union, however, the Dublin booksellers were made amenable to English law, and a dolorous cry arose that their trade was ruined, and that the “vested right” they had inherited, to prey upon the Saxon, had been abolished by the cruel conquerors. From this moment, of course, Irish bookselling was obliged to take a higher tone. In a few years the Dublin Review and the Dublin University Magazine vindicated the intellectual powers of the natives, and for a long time were widely circulated in Ireland, and were then mainly indebted to the enterprise of Irish authors and booksellers. When the Commission of National Education was appointed in Ireland, Mr. Thom was selected as a publisher, and, through their pecuniary aid, was enabled to bring out a series of “Irish National School Books,” that for cheapness and excellence are probably still unrivalled. These led, as we have previously seen, to petitions from the English publishers, complaining of state interference with the ordinary and commercial laws of bookselling, and to trials for infringement of copyright. However, in the long-run the Irish Commissioners were successful, and Mr. Longman, one of the complainants, eventually accepted their English agency. Besides his connection with the Commission, Mr. Thom has acquired a reputation in the Bookselling world by his excellent “Irish Almanac,” which, till recently, was unrivalled by the English almanacs of any London firms.
Latterly, however, Irish bookselling, as far as individual enterprize goes, has been commonly associated with the name of James Duffy. He was born in 1809, and after being apprenticed to a draper in the country, found employment in Dublin, and here, like Robert Chambers, he invested his spare coppers in picking up old books. At last he found trade so bad that he determined to emigrate, and accordingly, as he possessed no funds, he took his books to an auctioneer; at the sale, to his surprise, he found that the books he had purchased for pence, now produced as many shillings. Upon this he determined to drop the scheme of emigration, and to turn bookseller. As we have before mentioned, he collected the Bibles which the Catholics received from the Church of England propagandists only to turn into money, and took them over to Liverpool, where he exchanged them for books less unlawful in Papist eyes. At first he hawked these about the country, but eventually took a place of business in Anglesea Street, Dublin, and there began to publish the “Bruton Series” of thrilling tales of robbers, battles, adventures, and the like, at the low price of twopence each. In 1842 he was appointed bookseller to the Repeal Agitators, and produced, under their auspices, the “Library of Ireland,” consisting of patriotic and national collections of poems, &c., edited or written by some of the most brilliant of the National party. However, the movement for Repeal collapsed, and before this Duffy had discerningly turned his attention to less ephemeral publications, and produced editions of Carleton, Banin, and other native celebrities. The famine of 1846 affected every trade, and as the people had no money to buy bread, the sale of books was, of course, utterly hopeless, and Duffy found that he could not meet his engagements. His creditors granted him time, and the money was to be paid in instalments. He sold his copyrights in England, and paid the first instalment promptly. But when the time was due for the second he saw no prospect of meeting it. A neighbour, however, called John Donnegan, hearing that he was ruined, carried him a stocking full of money, his lifetime’s hoardings, threw it down before him, with “Just take that, and see if it is any use to you! Pay me when you can,” and refusing to take any receipt, rushed out again. The stocking contained nearly £1200, and Duffy was able not only to pay his creditors, but to turn his attention to the publication of more important works than he had hitherto attempted, such as the Douay Bible, Missals, Prayer-books, and many historical works, and it was not long before he was in a position to repay the kindly loan. About 1860 he opened a branch house in London, and at that period the success of his publishing career may be said to have culminated, for after the death of his wife he confined himself almost entirely to disposing of his old stock. He died on the 4th of July of the year 1871, regretted by his fellow-citizens in Dublin, and by his brother bibliopoles throughout the kingdom.[33]
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If it were not for want of space there are several towns in the Midland Counties which deserve notice here on account of their bibliopolical fame—none more so, perhaps, than Derby, which at present possesses no less than three large bookselling firms, which have also branch businesses in London, Messrs. Richardson and Son having in addition another establishment at Dublin. As Roman Catholic publishers some of their productions have achieved an enormous circulation, notably “The Crown of Jesus,” which, honoured with the approval of the Pope, and of all the English dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church, long since attained an issue of 100,000 copies. The works of Frederick William Faber, D.D., late of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, have also been among the most popular of Messrs. Richardson and Son’s publications. The Mozleys, of Derby, have long been in the trade, and are represented both in the country and in London; one of the family was well known in connection with the editorial staff of the Times newspaper. The Mozleys publish the Monthly Packet, edited by Miss Younge, and also the majority of that lady’s separate works. A third firm, Messrs. Bemrose and Sons, have gained a considerable reputation as archæological publishers, and as the proprietors of Mrs. Warren’s “Household Manuals.”
At Halifax, where the book trade is of a more recent date, Messrs. Milner and Sowerby, by their services in the cause of cheap publications of really good and standard works, have done much to counteract the effects of cheap and pernicious literature. “The Cottage Library” has long been known all over England, and was one of the first shilling series of really good books published—certainly the first in a neat form and with a neat binding, issued at this low price, and is still, in its extent and scope, unrivalled.
Manchester was one of the first provincial towns in England to which the printer and bookseller came, for it must be remembered that the trades were for centuries almost synonymous. The art of printing is said to have been introduced here in 1588, when Penny went through the kingdom with an itinerant press, but his plant was seized and destroyed by the fifth Earl of Derby. However, the innovation was effected, and the new art was firmly lodged. Manchester, nevertheless, in these early days was a place of such importance that a mere catalogue of the members of the trade would more than fill the few pages at our command. Among the booksellers of the last century we can only mention Haslingden, who published “Tim Bobbin”—a book still famous; the Sowlers, one of the descendants of whom started the Courier, under the editorship of Alaric A. Watts, in 1825, and the journal still enjoys a wide popularity; Joseph Harrop, who originated the Manchester Mercury in 1752, published the “History of Man” in sixpenny numbers, but Harrop’s well-known folio Bible was issued by his son and successor; the firm of Clarke Brothers amassed a large fortune in school books and stationery; and about the same time Banks and Co. were also doing an immense trade upon a thoroughly reprehensible system. Hayward, who was their managing partner, opened shops in various places, placed his own servants in possession, and made them accept bills to a very large amount. These bills were discounted at the Manchester Bank, and when the crash came the bank was a creditor upon the estate to the amount of £120,000, while the London publishers were indebted to the extent of £100,000. Among the shopmen in charge under Hayward’s system was Timperley, a printer, and a man of considerable literary ability. To pay the debts contracted through this wholesale acceptance of bills, he consigned his stock to an auctioneer, who, after disposing of it by auction, ran off with the proceeds of the sale. Timperley, heart-broken by misfortune, accepted a literary engagement with Fisher and Jackson, of London, and in their service he died. In early days he had been a soldier, had gone through many campaigns, had served at Waterloo, and had well earned his pension of a shilling per diem. He is now known chiefly as the author of the “Manchester Historical Recorder,” and of “Timperley’s Typographical Dictionary”—one of the most accurate, laborious, and voluminous compilations ever made, and one to be gratefully remembered by all students of the history of the printing press in this country. Another worthy of typographical fame was Bent, who, after doing a large bookselling business among the Manchester Unitarians, then, at all events, the most cultivated portion of the inhabitants, started “Bent’s Literary Advertiser,” the first bookseller’s organ, and which latterly has been incorporated in the Bookseller. The Bookseller was started in 1857 by Mr. Whitaker, and among its earliest contributors were many men of some note, especially Alaric Watts. From the first it filled an acknowledged void, and, as a trade journal, has never been surpassed. From the interest of the notes and trade gossip contained in its pages, as well as from the more solid information in its lists of works and announcements, it has secured a wide popularity here and abroad, and has been the precursor of similar journals in America and elsewhere.
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Among other important Manchester publishers were R. & W. Dean, who introduced stereotyping into the city, and issued a large series of popular and useful books. From some cause or another, they failed, and their stereos came into the possession of Samuel Johnson, the father of the Liverpool bookseller. Johnson now became a publisher on a very extensive scale, and is said to have been the originator of the royal 32mo. literature, which is now chiefly identified with Halifax.