Great Fortunes, and How They Were MadeMcCabe, James Dabney
History
Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made
McCabe, James Dabney
United States -- Biography
"There are no business men more honorable or generous than the
publishers of the United States, and especially honorable and
considerate toward authors. The relation usually existing between author
and publisher in the United States is that of a warm and lasting
friendship, such as now animates and dignifies the intercourse between
the literary men of New England and Messrs. Ticknor & Fields.... The
relation, too, is one of a singular mutual trustfulness. The author
receives his semi-annual account from the publisher with as ablute a
faith in its correctness as though he had himself counted the volumes
sold."
In 1865, the firm removed from the old corner stand to a new and elegant
establishment on Tremont Street, near the Common, and in the same year
Mr. Howard Ticknor, who had succeeded his father in the business,
withdrew from it. New partners were admitted, and the style of the firm
became Fields, Osgood & Co., Mr. Fields still remaining at the head of
the house.
The new book store is one of the handsomest and most attractive in the
country. The store proper is eighty feet deep by fifty feet wide, and is
fitted up handsomely in hard wood.
There is no paint about it, every piece of wood in use presenting its
natural appearance. On the right in entering are the book shelves and
counters, and on the opposite side the desks devoted to the magazine
department. At the rear are the counting rooms and the private office of
Mr. J.R. Osgood, the active business man of the concern. The second
story is elegantly and tastefully fitted up. It contains the luxurious
private office of Mr. Fields, in which are to be seen excellent
likenesses of his two dearest friends, Longfellow and Dickens; and the
parlor of the establishment, which is known as the Author's Room. This
is a spacious and handsomely-appointed room, whose windows, overlooking
the Common, command one of the prettiest views in New England. It is
supplied with the leading periodicals of the day, and choice volumes of
current literature. Here one may always find one or more of the "gifted
few," whose names are familiar to the reader; and frequent reunions of
the book-making fraternity are designed to be held here, under the
genial auspices of the literary partner of the house.
It is not often that men win success in both literature and mercantile
life. Good authors have usually made very poor business managers, and
_vice versa_; but the subject of this memoir, besides winning a great
success as a merchant, and that in one of the most hazardous branches of
mercantile life, has also won an enviable reputation as a man of
letters. His poems have made him well known, both in this country and in
England. Besides the poems recited before various literary associations,
he has published two volumes of fugitive pieces. The first appeared in
1843, while he was still a clerk, and the second in 1858. His poems
abound in humor, pathos, and a delicate, beautiful fancy. One of his
friends has said of him:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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