A History of Booksellers, the Old and the NewCurwen, Henry
History
A History of Booksellers, the Old and the New
Curwen, Henry
Book industries and trade -- Great Britain -- History; Booksellers and bookselling -- Great Britain -- History
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.
* * * * *
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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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