After Dodsley’s death, though poetry was at times far from being an unprofitable speculation, the publishers seem to have shunned it as a speciality; and, accordingly, a Constable, a Murray, and a Longman, though gathering large incomes from the sale of the works of some one or two great poets, placed their main reliance upon the prose compositions that administered to either the pleasure or the necessities of their public.
For a time, Taylor and Hessey almost adopted poetical publications as the mainstay of their business; and in their generous encouragement of Keats, and others of lesser note, including Clare, are to be gratefully remembered; but their trade-life as poetical publishers was brief, and it remained for Edward Moxon to identify his name with all the best poetry of the period in which he lived, to a greater extent than any previous bookseller at any time whatsoever.
Edward Moxon, not unlike some others of his craft, began life with strong literary aspirations. His warm admiration for genius, his hearty good-fellowship, and his longings for a literary career, brought him into contact with some of the greatest writers of the day, and attracted their support and friendship. As early as 1824 he was made a welcome member of the brilliant circle that owned Charles Lamb as its chief, and to be a protégé of Lamb’s was a passport into all literary society. In 1826, he published his first volume, “The Prospect; and other Poems;” and his friends received it with all possible kindness, as, perhaps, containing germs of something better. Even Wordsworth, usually very niggard of praise, wrote him a letter of encouragement—and warning:—“Fix your eye upon acquiring independence by an honourable business, and let the Muse come after rather than go before.” But advice of this nature, even when given with the practical illustrations that Wordsworth’s own career might have furnished, had little likelihood of being accepted by a young and impetuous poetaster; and in 1829 we find Moxon launching another venture on the world—“Christmas, a poem”—to be as coldly received by the “general public” as the former. What, however, the advice of a veteran poet could not effect, a stronger power was able to accomplish.
During Lamb’s residence at Enfield, their acquaintance ripened into a very frequent intercourse, and eventually resulted in Moxon’s engagement to a young lady who spent most of her time under the protection of Lamb and his sister. Lamb had met Miss Isola some years before at Cambridge, and had taken so much interest in the little orphan girl, who was then living with her grandfather—an Italian refugee, and a teacher of languages—that by degrees he came to be looked upon as almost a natural guardian. Marriage, however, was out of the question until her lover had some more substantial manner of livelihood than the cultivation of the Muse seemed ever likely to afford him. In this strait, Rogers came forward and generously offered to start him in life as a publisher, and, with the goal of matrimony in view, the offer was eagerly accepted.
Accordingly, in 1830, Moxon opened a small publishing shop at 34, New Bond Street. The first volume he issued was “Charles Lamb’s Album Verses,” and the dedication sufficiently explains its purpose:—
“Dear Moxon,—I do not know to whom a Dedication of these trifles is more properly due than to yourself: you suggested the printing of them—you were desirous of exhibiting a specimen of the manner in which the publications entrusted to your future care would appear. With more propriety, perhaps, the ‘Christmas,’ or some of your own simple, unpretending compositions, might have served this purpose. But I forget—you have bid a long adieu to the Muse ... it is not for me nor you to allude in public to the kindness of our honoured friend, under whose auspices you are becoming a bookseller. May this fine-minded veteran in verse enjoy life long enough to see his patronage justified. I venture to predict that your habits of industry, and your cheerful spirit, will carry you through the world.
“Enfield, 1st June, 1830.”
An unfavourable notice of these “Album Verses” appeared in the Literary Gazette; but Lamb was too well loved to lack defenders, and some verses in reply, by Southey, were soon afterwards inserted in the Times.
In the following year the Englishman’s Magazine came into Moxon’s hands, and to its pages Elia lent the charm of his pen. Although it only lasted from April till October, its columns still present us with matter of literary interest. In the same number we find a sonnet signed “A. Tennyson,” and a very long review upon “Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson,” written by his friend Arthur H. Hallam. This was almost Mr. Tennyson’s first avowed appearance in public; and as Mr. Moxon’s name was so intimately associated with the poet’s future works, we may be allowed to go back for a moment. In 1827 a little duodecimo volume of 240 pages, entitled “Poems, by Two Brothers,” was published by J. and J. Jackson, Market Place, Louth; and the “two brothers” were Charles and Alfred Tennyson, the latter being only seventeen years of age. In 1829 Mr. Tennyson gained the Chancellor’s gold medal at Cambridge for a prize poem on “Timbuctoo,” his friend Hallam being also one of the competitors. The prize poem was printed with his name, and, a thing quite unprecedented, was noticed at length in the Athenæum, as indicating “really first-rate poetical genius, and which would have done honour to any man that ever wrote.... How many men have lived for a century who could equal this?” In the following year, 1830, appeared the “Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson;” London: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1830 (pp. 154); and it was these, of course, which were reviewed by Hallam in the Englishman’s Magazine. In the course of a very long notice, the writer says:—“The features of original genius are clearly and strongly marked. The author imitates nobody; we recognise the spirit of the age, but not the individual pen of this or that writer.... In presenting the young poet to the public as one not studious of instant popularity, and unlikely to attain it ... we have spoken in good faith, commending the volume to feeling hearts and imaginative tempers.” Even before this review, deeply interesting when we remember what a loving and loved friend he was who wrote it, the little volume was noticed in the Westminster Review by, it is believed, Mr. John Stuart Mill, as demonstrating “the possession of powers, to the future direction of which we look with some anxiety. He has shown, in the lines from which we quote, his own just conception of the grandeur of a poet’s calling; and we look to him for its fulfilment.” Encouragement such as this led Moxon to publish a further volume of Mr. Tennyson’s poems in 1833, and the connection thus commenced lasted throughout his lifetime. In a letter addressed to him by Wordsworth, as a northern correspondent in the book-market, there is intelligence, neither pleasant for a veteran poet to indite, nor for a young publisher to receive:—“There does not seem to be much genuine relish for poetical publications in Cumberland, if I may judge from the fact of not a copy of my poems having been sold there by one of the leading booksellers, though Cumberland is my native county.” In this same year, too, Moxon published, for the first time, a collected edition of the “Last Essays of Elia;” but before this time he proved, by his attention to his business, that he was worthy of Miss Isola’s hand. Lamb’s letters to Moxon, in the few weeks preceding the marriage, are in his happiest, most delicately-bantering style—for instance: “For God’s sake give Emma no more watches—one has turned her head. She is arrogant and insulting. She said something very unpleasant to our old clock in the passage, as if he did not keep time, and yet he had made her no appointment. She takes it out every moment to look at the minute hand. She lugs us out into the field, because there the bird-boys cry out—‘You, pray, sir, can you tell us the time?’ and she answers them punctually. She loses all her time looking to see what the time is! I heard her whispering just now—‘so many hours, minutes, &c., to Tuesday; I think St. George’s goes too slow.’... She has spoilt some of the movements. Between ourselves, she has kissed away the ‘half-past twelve,’ which I suppose to be the canonical hour in Hanover Square.” On the 30th July they were married. Lamb, as long as he lived, regarded them with almost paternal affection, and, at his death, left Moxon his treasured collection of books.
Meanwhile the illustrated edition of Rogers’s “Italy” was in preparation, and with a view to its publication Moxon moved to Dover Street, Piccadilly.
Rogers spared no cost in the production of what was intended to be the most beautifully illustrated volume that had ever been published. £10,000 was spent on the illustrations and the engraving of them. There were fifty-six engravings in all by Turner, Stothard, and other eminent artists. Turner was to have received fifty pounds apiece for his drawings, but at one time the whole speculation threatened to turn out a failure, and he then offered the bard the use of them for five pounds each instead. To match this luxurious volume the illustrated edition of Rogers’s “Poems” was brought out, at a further cost of £5000, with seventy-two engravings by Turner, Stothard, Landseer, Eastlake, &c., and, in spite of the enormous outlay on the two works, their increasing popularity must have recouped the poet, for upwards of 50,000 copies are said to have been sold before the year 1847. Moxon was always proud of the share he had taken in the production of these works. All the volumes he issued were indeed remarkable for the beautiful manner in which they were “got up,” and in 1835 he published such an exquisite edition of his own sonnets that the beauty of this dandy of a book enraged and alarmed a writer in the Quarterly:—“Its typographical splendours led us to fear that this style of writing was getting into fashion,” but fortunately for the reviewer’s peace of mind he discovered “that Mr. Moxon the bookseller is his own poet, and that Mr. Moxon the poet is his own bookseller.... The necessity of obtaining an imprimatur of a publisher is a very wholesome restraint, from which Mr. Moxon—unluckily for himself and for us—found himself relieved.” Surely after a notice like this—indeed we have only quoted the kindlier portion, for often as publishers din the unsaleable nature of the drug poetry into the ears of young writers, the charm of retorting upon a bookseller seldom falls so temptingly before an author.—Moxon must have regretted that he did not cleave to a promise, held out in his first essay in 1826:—