“History” has been aptly termed the “essence of innumerable
biographies;” and this surely justifies us in the selection of our
title; but in inditing a volume to be issued in a cheap and popular
form, it was manifestly impossible to trace the careers of all the
eminent members, ancient and modern, of a Trade so widely extended;
had we, indeed, possessed all possible leisure for research, every
available material, and a space thoroughly unlimited, it is most
probable that the result would have been distinguished chiefly for
its bulk, tediousness, and monotony. It was resolved, therefore, in
the first planning of the volume, to primarily trace the origin and
growth of the Bookselling and Publishing Trades up to a comparatively
modern period; and then to select, for fuller treatment, the most
typical English representatives of each one of the various branches
into which a natural division of labour had subdivided the whole.
And, by this plan, it is believed that, while some firms at present
growing into eminence may have been omitted, or have received but
scant acknowledgment, no one Publisher or Bookseller, whose spirit
and labours have as yet had time to justify a claim to a niche in the
“HISTORY OF BOOKSELLERS,” has been altogether passed over. In the
course of our “HISTORY,” too, we have been necessarily concerned with
the manner of the “equipping and furnishing” of nearly every great
work in our literature. So that, while on the one hand we have related
the lives of a body of men singularly thrifty, able, industrious, and
persevering--in some few cases singularly venturesome, liberal, and
kindly-hearted--we have on the other, by our comparative view, tried to
throw a fresh, at all events a concentrated, light upon the interesting
story of literary struggle.
No work of the kind has ever previously been attempted, and this fact
must be an apology for some, at least, of our shortcomings.