Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
It will be seen that the first appearance of the name of Ticknor, as in
any way associated with the publishing of books, was in 1832. In the
spring of 1864 Mr. William D. Ticknor visited Philadelphia in company
with Nathaniel Hawthorne; was taken suddenly ill and died there. Shortly
afterwards his eldest son Howard M. Ticknor, a graduate of Harvard
College in the class of 1856, was taken into the firm, which, under the
name of TICKNOR & FIELDS, held a very prominent place among American
publishers for over twenty years. During the period ending with the year
1867 the Old Corner was one of the best known spots in Boston, not alone
by reason of its antiquity, but equally by reason of its distinguished
literary history and its _habitues_. Here Charles Dickens and
Thackeray used to loiter and chat with their American publishers;
Lowell, Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier, and Whipple the essayist, made
it their head-quarters. Nearly all of their best-known writings, and
those of Emerson, Hawthorne, Saxe, Winthrop, Bayard Taylor, Mrs. Stowe,
Aldrich, Howells, and a host of other well-known authors, sooner or
later bore the imprint of the house of Ticknor. After the failure of
Messrs. Phillips, Sampson,& Co., the "Atlantic Monthly," first suggested
by Mr. Francis H. Underwood, now United States Consul to Glasgow, passed
into the hands of Ticknor & Fields, and, a little later, was added "Our
Young Folks," edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom, "Every
Saturday," edited by T.B. Aldrich, and the "North American Review," long
edited by James Russell Lowell.
[Illustration: THE OLD CORNER IN 1850.]
Still later the firm name was Fields, Osgood, & Co., then James R.
Osgood & Co., then Houghton, Osgood,& Co., and again James R. Osgood
& Co. The last-named firm published a remarkable series of books, which
their successors inherit.
[Illustration: 124 TREMONT STREET.]
At no time in its history, from 1832 to the present time, has the firm
been without a Ticknor in its copartnership. For a brief season,
however, the name disappeared from the firm's imprint.
The great publishing house has just inaugurated a new tenure of life as
Ticknor & Co., the copartnership consisting of Benjamin H. and Thomas B.
Ticknor, sons of William D. Ticknor, and George F. Godfrey, of Bangor,
Me., a gentleman of marked culture and geniality, and one, too, who, all
may rest assured, will take kindly to and will find success in the book
business. With scholarly acquirements, and with minds trained to the
wants of to-day, the sons of W.D. Ticknor, both gentlemen of refined
literary taste, now step to the front with strong hands and vigorous
purposes, not alone to perpetuate but to add to the former reputation of
the time-honored publishing house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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