Up to his death Cassell was true to his early resolutions of fostering the progress of temperance and education, and on these subjects he was a frequent and popular lecturer. He took also a lively interest in the business of the firm, but latterly the management was virtually in the hands of his partners. The “History of Julius Cæsar,” by the ex-emperor, was, however, entrusted to his care, and was the last publication in which he took an active interest. On the 1st of April, 1865, he died at his residence in Regent’s Park. He is described as having “a fine, massive, muscular frame, active and temperate habits of life, a cheerful disposition, a well-regulated mind, and troops of friends.” Rising from the ranks, he was by his industry able to leave his wife a shareholder in one of our largest book-manufacturing firms to the extent of, it is said, forty-two thousand pounds. The main interest of his life must, however, be considered to lie in the earnestness with which he laboured in causes he felt worthy of all labour, rather than in his career as a publisher, for the books he issued were little other than reprints of books whose popularity had been previously tested.

At the time of Cassell’s death it is said that upwards of 500 men were employed at the works; that 855,000 sheets were printed off weekly, requiring a consumption of 1310 reams of paper. Latterly Messrs. Petter and Galpin have launched out into a vastly superior style of book-publishing, and in placing the works of Gustave Doré before the English public have taken very high rank as Fine Art publishers. In other ways, too, they have shown a disposition to combine the production of valuable original works with the cheaper serials with which the name of their firm has been so long and successfully associated.

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It is impossible to close this chapter without referring to the productions of Mr. Bohn. Our limited space and the value of his publications—all the more valuable, doubtless, from being mainly reproductions of standard works—alone prevent us from according him a separate chapter.

Mr. Henry George Bohn, born in the year 1796, was the son of a London bookseller, who came, however, of a German family. At an early age he entered into his father’s business, but throughout life, engrossed as deeply as any of his compeers in bookselling and publishing transactions, he ever found time and opportunity for literary labour, and, in all, twelve important works are due to his pen, either as author, translator, or editor. The first of his labours, the “Bibliotheca Parriana,” was published in 1827. Very soon after, starting on his own account, he acquired a high reputation as a dealer in rare and curious books, and for the spirit with which he entered into the “remainder trade;” in this latter branch even Tegg was compelled to confess that Mr. Bohn eventually surpassed him. The merest reference to his monster “Guinea Catalogue” will give an idea of the magnitude of his transactions at this period. Far, however, from being a mere trade guide, this catalogue is an invaluable literary work—the most useful, as it certainly is the largest, that has come from Mr. Bohn’s pen. It is quaintly described by Allibone as “an enormously thick nondescripto; Teutonic shape, best model; ... an invaluable lexicon to any literary man, and ten guineas would be a cheap price for a work calculated to save time by its convenience for reference, and money by its stores of information as to the literary and pecuniary value of countless tomes.” The Literary Gazette, in an appreciative and well-earned compliment, says: “Mr. Bohn has outdone all former doings in the same line, and given us a literary curiosity of remarkable character. The volume is the squattest and the fattest we ever saw. It is an alderman among books, not a very tall one; and then, alderman-like, its inside is richly stuffed with a multitude of good things. Why, there is a list of more than 23,000 articles, and the pages reach to 1948!... This catalogue has cost him an outlay of more than £2000, and it describes 300,000 volumes, a stock which could hardly be realized at much less a ‘plum.’”

In 1846, Mr. Registrar Hazlitt suggested the idea of a cheap uniform library of world-known books to David Bogue, the bookseller, who consequently commenced his European Library. In 1846–7, fifteen works were published, edited for the most part by Mr. W. Hazlitt. Mr. Bohn, however, discovered that in many of these works copyrights, of which he was the owner, were infringed, notably in Roscoe’s “Lorenzo de’ Medici” and “Leo X.” An injunction was obtained against the further issue of one of Bogue’s volumes, and in defence, if not retaliation, Mr. Bohn determined to enter the field as a publisher of a similar series. In 1846 he produced the first volume of his Standard Library, which, running on for 150 volumes, was sold at the then astoundingly small price—considering their size, their quality, and the care with which they were edited and printed—of 3s. 6d. each. In 1847, the Scientific Library was commenced, and was rapidly followed by the Antiquarian Library, the Classical, Illustrated, and Historical Libraries, the British Classics, &c. Bogue’s small venture stood a poor chance against enterprise of this gargantuan scale, and in a short time his fifteen volumes came into Mr. Bohn’s possession. Without counting the Shilling Library, or the more expensive works which were from time to time issued, Mr. Bohn continued the various libraries which are so immediately associated with his name, until the total number of 602 volumes afforded the student a collection of such books as he might otherwise have spent a lifetime and a fortune in acquiring. To few publishers, if to any, is the cheapening of the highest and rarest classes of English and foreign literature more deeply indebted than to Mr. Bohn. Strangely enough, however, Mr. Bohn was the only member of the trade who endeavoured in 1860 to exert his influence against the abolition of the paper duty.

Among the best known of Mr. Bohn’s own productions are his editions of Lowndes’ “Manual,” Addison’s works, his “Polyglot of French Proverbs,” his translation of Schiller’s “Robbers,” and his “Guide to the Knowledge of Pottery and Porcelain,” which, though published in 1849, is still the standard work on the subject. His position as an antiquarian is widely acknowledged, and he is a Vice-President of the Society of Arts.

At an early period of his life Mr. Bohn married a daughter of the senior partner in the firm of Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., an alliance that doubtless strengthened his business connections. His trade sales were for many years among the most important in London, lasting for three or four days, and were conducted after the manner of the good old school of booksellers—now, alas! almost extinct—with the pleasing accompaniments of singing and supper. Though Mr. Bohn, a few years since, transferred his “Libraries” and his premises in York Street to Messrs. Bell and Daldy, he has not yet entirely severed his connection with the bookselling world, though as the “father of the trade” he has long since earned the right to leisure and retirement—a right acknowledged not alone in England, for in June, 1869, the New York Round Table devoted an interesting article to Mr. Bohn’s retirement from the publishing world, and observed that many of his articles in “Lowndes” were unsurpassed in bibliography, especially those on Shakespeare and Junius. “Indeed,” adds the writer, “if we may believe report, such has been the unceasing devotion of Mr. Bohn to work that for years he has subjected himself to a weekly examination by his surgeon to warn him of the first symptoms of the collapse that such an unintermitted strain upon his mind might be supposed to produce.”