Leaving for a while the publishers and vendors of books, we come
now to the truest disseminators of literature among those who would
otherwise have formed a non-reading, non-thinking, untaught class
in the community--a class who, originally at all events, were shut
out from the inheritance of the precious garnerings bequeathed by
long generations of writers having aught of genius, wit, or industry
to leave behind--for they were debarred from all enjoyment of such
heritage through their sheer inability to pay the literary legacy duty
demanded by the appointed tax-gatherers, the booksellers.
In former times, of course, the very capability to read was confined
to the student, and to the poor student especially were the early
circulating libraries addressed. The first circulating library of
which we have any authentic history--for most history is much other
than authentic--was, according to Dr. Adam Clarke and other eminent
antiquarians, founded at Cæsarea about the year 309 A.D., by St.
Pamphilus, who united in his character the best attributes of the
Christian and the philosopher. In a few years the library contained
upwards of 30,000 volumes, an enormous number, considering the age
at which it existed. The collection was, however, intended only for
religious purposes, and the loan of the books was distinctly confined
to “religiously disposed persons.” At Paris and elsewhere traces of
this collection are still said to exist.
In the middle ages, the practice of lending out books, or exchanging
them between monastery and monastery, was not uncommon, and by the
early stationers of Paris the manuscripts were cut up into small
portions (much as the present librarian’s novel requires to be divided
into three volumes), to the greater profit of the lenders; but we come
to very modern times before we find that circulating libraries, in the
modern acceptation of the term, were established.
The first circulating library in London was founded by Wright, a
bookseller of 132, Strand, about the year 1730. Franklin, writing of a
time some five years previous to this, says:--“While I lodged in Little
Britain, I formed an acquaintance with a bookseller of the name of
Wilcox, whose shop was next door to me. _Circulating libraries were not
then in use._ We agreed that for a reasonable retribution, of which I
have forgotten the price, I should have free access to his library, and
take what books I pleased, which I was to return when I had read them.”
Among Wright’s earliest rivals were the Nobles, John Bell (the cheap
publisher), Thomas Lowndes, and notably Samuel Bathoe, who died in
1768, and to whom, erroneously, the credit of the innovation has been
very generally attributed. As late, however, as 1770, there were only
four real circulating libraries in the capital.
The practice soon spread through the country. Shortly after Wright’s
death, Hatton established a circulating library at Birmingham. In 1745,
Watts introduced a circulating library into Cambridge, greatly extended
afterwards by John Nicholson, known by the _sobriquet_ of “Maps,”
who used to carry a sack of books to each undergraduate’s rooms, in
case they felt a sudden inclination for reading something newer than
Homer, Xenophon, or Euclid. By the year 1755 we find that circulating
libraries had extended to the extreme north of England, for Newcastle
then boasted the possession of two.
Though the custom was rapidly obtaining in town and country, the books
lent out to read were generally very similar in title to those in
the famous list in the “Rivals,” which caused Sir Anthony Absolute’s
condemnation--“A circulating library in a town is an evergreen tree of
diabolical knowledge; it blossoms throughout the year. And depend on
it, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves will long for the
fruit at last.” We have still only to go to our little country towns
and petty watering-places--few now, fortunately, still beyond the arm
of “Smith” or “Mudie”--to see the circulating library in its pristine
form.
At first the benefits that must inevitably accrue from the movement to
the publishers as well as to the public were by no means recognized.
Lackington tells us that “when the circulating libraries were first
opened the booksellers were most alarmed, but experience has proved
that the sale of books, so far from being diminished thereby, has been
most greatly increased.”
Under the care of Hookham and Eber, these circulating libraries did
undoubtedly improve, for the proprietors now began to consider the
wants of students as well as the idle pleasure of loungers who thought
with Gray that the acmé of human happiness consisted in lying upon a
sofa reading the latest licentious novelties of Crébillon _fils_ and
his genus. The movement was further accelerated by the foundation of
book-clubs, the first of which is said to have sprung out of Burn’s
“Bachelor’s Club.” For forty or fifty years these book-clubs did good
service in the cause of education and progress, especially under
the fostering care of Mr. Charles Knight and the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; but soon an organizing genius arose
who was not only to render book-clubs, save those affiliated to his
own, unnecessary, but was to develop the full power of co-operation
in the circulating library itself. And his advent was favoured by a
wonderfully extended system of transport through the agency of the
railways.
Charles Edward Mudie was born in the year 1818, in Cheyne Walk,
Chelsea, where his father kept a little newspaper shop, at which
stationery and other articles were retailed, and where books of the
fugitive fiction class could be borrowed at the usual suburban charge
of a penny the volume.
[Illustration: Charles Edward Mudie, founder of Mudie’s Library.]
Mr. Mudie’s education was, as he says, “properly cared for,” and
he stayed at home assisting in his father’s business until he was
twenty-two years of age; and even in his early days he made it
his great ambition to possess a circulating library of his own,
declaring that when once he was started he would be second to none.
In the year 1840, he opened a little shop in Upper King Street,
Bloomsbury, and he carried on precisely the same trade as his father
did in Cheyne Walk. By degrees, however, he neglected the newspaper
and general stationery business, and devoted himself more exclusively
to the circulating library, which he increased at such a rapid rate
that the father became alarmed at the speculative spirit of his son. In
1842, Mr. Mudie commenced his system of lending out one exchangeable
volume to subscribers at the rate of a guinea per annum; and as he made
the addition of every new work, immediately upon its publication, a
feature in his establishment, he produced an entire revolution in the
circulating library movement, and was rewarded by a rapidly increasing
number of subscribers. Nor did he at this early period confine his
dealings solely to circulating the books of other publishers. He was
himself in some instances a publisher, and from his establishment
issued the first English edition of James R. Lowell’s “Poems,” and Mr.
George Dawson’s first “Orations.”
In 1852 the library had grown too large for the house in Upper King
Street, and he removed his business to two houses which form part of
his present establishment--the penultimate house in New Oxford Street,
and the penultimate house in Museum Street; and though the corner
house intervened, the two were connected by a passage. Gradually, as
the business grew, the houses on either side were absorbed. In 1860
the large hall was opened, and inaugurated by a festive gathering of
literary men and publishers; and the entire block of building, as it
stands at present, occupies the sites of eight houses, and even now
great additions are being made to the rear of the premises. As the
popularity of the library increased, branch houses were opened in the
city, in Birmingham and Manchester, and arrangements were made with
literary institutions, provincial libraries, book-clubs, and societies.
The magnitude of the business had, however, now grown beyond the limit
of individual capital, and, in 1864, Mr. Mudie found it desirable to
form his library into a limited liability company. The value of the
property was estimated at £100,000; of this he reserved £50,000, and
the remaining £50,000 was immediately subscribed by Mr. Murray, Mr.
Bentley, and other publishers; Mr. Mudie’s services being, naturally,
retained at a salary of £1,000 per annum, in addition to his half
interest in the business.
This change, and the increase of capital, proved in every way
beneficial to the expansion of the library; and since penning this
account we have received a circular announcing an enormous increase of
business. From the 18th August, 1871, the Directors of Mudie’s Select
Library (Limited) became possessors of the English and Foreign Library
and its large connection. This library, which was originally known as
“Hookham’s,” at one time possessed one of the finest collections of
rare and valuable standard works in London.
On entering Mudie’s Select Library, from New Oxford Street, we pass
through the show-rooms devoted to the sale of bound books; for
though the directors do not enter into the usual speculations of the
bookselling trade, the clean copies of popular works are put into
ornamental bindings, and in this manner a very extensive business is
done in works adapted for presents and prizes. Behind these show-rooms
stands the Great Hall, a large room, on the wall of which 16,000
of the current works most in vogue are shelved. What most strikes
us here is the great order and method that everywhere obtains. The
volumes are arranged in alphabetical order, and every attendant goes
straight to the required book, without hesitation or delay. For each
London customer a card is reserved bearing his name, and these cards
are kept, like the books, in an alphabetical system. The books taken
out are entered on the card, the books brought back ticked off, and
the method is found to be as successful as it certainly is simple.
The longer lists of large and country subscribers are still, however,
entered in the ledgers. Proceeding upstairs to the first floor, we
find books, still current, but not quite so incessantly called for.
On the first floor, too, we have the private offices for clerks, and
the foreign department. Mudie’s collection of German works is the
best of any of the London circulating libraries, and the German books
are said to be much more earnestly read than the French, occasional
and popular novels, of course, excepted. On the higher floors the
standard catalogued works are stowed, their popularity diminishing as
the altitude of their resting place increases. As soon as a book is
published in a shilling or other cheap edition, it ceases to be much
demanded here. For instance, Lord Lytton’s novels are in very little
request. On the contrary, we were told that no sets of books are so
rapidly “worn out” as the works of Charles Dickens.
The stock of books is so incessantly varying through the sale of
old and the purchase of new volumes, that we were told that it was
impossible to give anything like an estimate of the numbers. Some idea
of the magnitude of the library may, however, be gathered from the
following:--
Of the last two volumes of Macaulay’s “History of England,” 2400 copies
were taken, and the public demand for them was so extraordinary that a
whole shop, now the large room on the left as one enters, was devoted
to their stowage and exchange. There were taken, of Dr. Livingstone’s
first African Travels, 2000 copies; and of Mr. Tennyson’s “Enoch
Arden,” 2500 (the largest number required of any poetical work); of
Mr. Disraeli’s “Lothair” 1500 copies were at first subscribed, but it
was soon found necessary to increase the number to 3000. The demand
was, however, as brief as it was eager, and the monumental pile of
“remainders” in Mr. Mudie’s cellar is the largest that has ever been
erected there to the hydra of ephemeral admiration. About 600 copies
of each of the two great reviews--the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly_--are
required as a first instalment; but should any article prove more
than usually attractive to the public, a large addition is made--this
was notably the case with that number of the _Quarterly_ containing
the famous article on the “Talmud;” 100 copies of the _Revue des Deux
Mondes_ are required fortnightly to satisfy foreign students; and
we believe that, of all novels which are likely to prove ordinarily
popular, as many as 400 are at once ordered. The onus of selecting
the books rests entirely in Mr. Mudie’s own hands, and it has often
been objected that his decisions are somewhat arbitrary;--for instance
Mr. Swinburne is tabooed, while M. Paul de Koch is made free of the
establishment--that, in short, the subscribers should be considered as
responsible judges of what books they do, and do not, desire to read.
However, as it is, Mr. Mudie’s principles of selection are broad enough
to satisfy very various classes of readers. Of course the largest class
of all are the novel-devourers, and it is said that, as the coarser
novels of the day are almost exclusively written by women, so it is
by women that they are chiefly patronised. The large field opened to
female labour in the manufacture of library fiction is worth a moment’s
consideration, for the road has been cleared towards it, not by
platform gatherings of stentorian amazons, but simply by the ordinary
laws of supply and demand.
On analysing Mudie’s clearance catalogue for August, 1871 (and this
catalogue is one of the best guides to the popular novel literature
of the last few years), we find that there are 441 works of fiction
written by authors under their own names, or by authors whose
pseudonymes are perfectly well known. Of these 441 distinct works,
212 are written by men, and 229 by women; so that, by what seems to
us a not unfair test, actually more than half the novels of the day
are written by female authors. To another large class of readers (the
good people who go to Mr. and Mrs. German Reed’s entertainments, and
not to the theatre), the ordinary novels are _caviare_; and they
require their fiction seasoned, not by sensation, but by religious
precept. Scientific books, once asked for only by students, are vastly
increasing in popularity; and the “fairy tales of science,” as narrated
by a Huxley or a Darwin, are beginning to be as eagerly demanded as the
latest productions of Miss Braddon or Mr. Wilkie Collins.
In the basement cellars, extending under the whole building, the
“remainders” are stowed in huge bales, ready for sale or export. These
are principally purchased by the country circulating libraries, and by
shippers to the colonies and British possessions; and thus the name
of Mudie--and the well-known yellow label, familiar in every English
household--is carried wherever the English tongue is spoken.
About eighty assistants are employed in the central house alone,
without reckoning those engaged in the city and the country branches.
The system of leaving books at the subscribers’ own homes, recently
introduced, is becoming more and more popular: five vans go out daily
on their respective rounds, and 8000 calls are generally made in the
course of the week.
Mr. Mudie’s services as a public benefactor in the cause of extended
education, were some years since publicly recognized by the ratepayers
of Westminster, in his election to the London School Board; and it
is to be hoped that his knowledge of the practical use of the boon
conferred upon the higher classes by the increased facilities of
book-hiring, may lead him to urge upon his colleagues the advisability
of establishing free circulating libraries for the use of those whose
educational guardians they have recently become. The gift of tools is
of very little moment to any one, if there is to be no occasion for
their use; and in many instances it will be an absolute cruelty to
teach children to read, and then to hurl them back on the atrocious
literature of slum shops. At present, the fact that London is still
without any pretence to a free circulating library, or indeed to an
absolutely free library of any kind, is doubly disgraceful to our
pachydermatous local authorities, because several provincial towns have
shamed us by a good example. When the schoolmaster first began to
bestir himself abroad in England, a taste for reading was encouraged,
which soon spread in every direction, and by degrees a loud demand,
satisfied at present only in a very limited degree, began to make
itself heard for the establishment of free libraries.
In 1845, Mr. William Ewart succeeded in passing a bill through the
House to encourage the establishment of museums, and, legally intended,
to include also libraries. By this act the local authorities, in towns
with a population exceeding 10,000, possessed the power of levying a
halfpenny rate for this purpose; and the sum so raised was to be spent
in providing buildings, and in paying the expenses of conservation,
not of accumulation. At this time, an official inquiry shows us that
Manchester, with a population of 360,000 persons, was the only town
in the kingdom which possessed a perfectly free library--this was the
Chetham _Endowed_ Library (said to be the oldest in Europe), which
consisted of only 19,000 volumes. A further act was passed in 1850,
distinctly referring to libraries, under the title of the “Public
Library and Museum Act,” by the provisions of which a majority of the
ratepayers, at any properly summoned meeting, can levy a halfpenny in
the pound for the establishment of free libraries.
In 1852, chiefly owing to the exertions of the late Sir John Potter,
the Manchester Free Library was opened, and is supported by the
ratepayers. Since that time, four additional free lending libraries,
with newspaper-rooms attached, have been affiliated to it. In 1869 the
main library contained upwards of 84,000 volumes. A guarantee from any
householder is all that is required by those wishing to partake of the
benefits of the Manchester libraries.
The Liverpool Library, the best used of all these institutions, was
founded chiefly through the munificence of Mr. William Brown, who, at
its opening in 1860, was created a baronet. It consists of a reference
and two lending libraries, and in 1867, though there were only 45,668
volumes in the reference library, the daily issue of books actually
averaged 2041.
At Bebbington, a suburb of Liverpool, or, more justly, of Birkenhead,
a very excellent free circulating library has been established by Mr.
Meyer, the eminent goldsmith and antiquarian, and its advantages are
duly appreciated by the residents for miles around.
At Birmingham there are five different libraries and reading-rooms,
containing, in all, 52,269 volumes. In 1869, 300,031 volumes were
borrowed by 9688 persons, of whom no fewer than 5607 were under twenty
years of age.
The “lending library” at all these towns appears to be of a more
popular character than the “reference library,” though both are
essential.
After this short survey, it does indeed seem disgraceful to the London
authorities that now, when the State is absolutely preparing its
weapons to battle with Ignorance, when Education is to be made possible
to all, patent to all, Mr. Mudie should be allowed, unrivalled, to
supply so admirably the literary wants of the wealthy, and that the
poor should be refused the cheapest and most remunerative of all
boons--a free opportunity of gaining knowledge.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_W. H. SMITH AND SON_: