very much to say. The second-hand bookselling trade for the past
half-century has been confined in a large measure to three firms--R.
Gladding, an octogenarian, who dealt almost exclusively in theological
books, whose shop was at 76, Whitechapel Road, and who retired at the
end of 1893; E. George and Sons, who have been for many years
established at 231, Whitechapel Road, and have lately acquired
Gladding's shop; and Joseph Smith, 2, Oxford Street, Whitechapel. The
two last-named firms are, in their respective ways, of more than usual
interest. Mr. E. George, whose father, William George, was also a
bookseller, started in business on his own account between thirty and
forty years ago, his stock-in-trade consisting of four shillings' worth
of miscellaneous volumes, which he exposed for sale on a barrow close
to the old Whitechapel workhouse, which occupied the ground on which one
of Mr. George's shops now stands. Mr. George has built up one of the
most remarkable and extensive business connections in existence. His
stock may be roughly calculated at about 700,000 or 800,000 volumes or
parts, two large houses and warehouses being literally crammed full from
top to bottom. There is scarcely any periodical or transactions of any
learned society which they are unable to complete, and in many
instances--_Punch_, for example--they have at least a dozen complete
sets, besides an infinity of odd numbers and parts. It is scarcely
necessary to point out that Messrs. George's business has very little to
do with the locality in which their shops are situated. They are the
wholesale firm of the trade, and the larger part of their business is
done in the United States and among the provincial booksellers of Great
Britain, ten huge cases and a complete set of Hansard being on the eve
of exportation to America at the time of our visit. It is a curious
fact, and one well worth mentioning, that until last year (1894) this
firm never issued a catalogue. It is also interesting to point out that
their shop at 76, Whitechapel Road is one of the most admirably arranged
bookstores in the country. It was specially constructed, and is not
unlike a miniature British Museum Reading-room; there are two galleries,
one above the other. The second East End worthy has a literary as well
as a bibliopolic interest. Joseph Smith will be better remembered by
posterity as the compiler of a 'Catalogue of Friends' Books,' and of the
'Bibliotheca Anti-Quakerana,' than as a bookseller. He was twenty years
compiling the former, and is perhaps one of the most striking
illustrations of the wisdom of the theory that the bookseller who wishes
to be a success should never read! Joseph Smith is of the Society of
Friends, and among his schoolfellows were John Bright and W. E. Forster.
Second-hand bookselling in the East End has declined during the past
quarter of a century from several causes, the chief and most important
being the almost complete withdrawal of moderately well-to-do people
from the locality. The neighbourhood has become so exclusively inhabited
by the poorest of the poor, and by the desolate immigrants from all
countries, that the higher phases of bookselling have little chance of
flourishing. Mr. E. George informs us that fifteen or twenty years ago
he frequently sold in one day books to the value of £15 to genuine
residents of the East End, but that he now does not sell fifteen
shillings' worth. So far as local customers are concerned, he might just
as well have nothing more elaborate than a warehouse.
Many interesting bookish events have, nevertheless, transpired in what
is now the slummiest district of London, and if the best of these
anecdotes were collected they would fill quite a big volume. They are
very varied in character, and some of the stories have very different
morals. Here is one related concerning the Rev. Mr. Brand, to whom we
have already referred. He was a clergyman of that district, and, it is
feared, sometimes neglected his religious duties for the more engrossing
charms of the chase. One Friday afternoon he was roaming in the
neighbourhood of his church, when his eye fell on the shop of a Jew
bookseller which he had not before noticed, and was astonished to see
there a number of black-letter volumes exposed for sale. But the sun was
rapidly going down, and the Jew, loath to be stoned by his neighbours
for breaking the Sabbath, was hastily interposing the shutters between
the eyes of the clergyman and the coveted books. 'Let me look at them
inside,' said the Rev. Mr. Brand; 'I will not keep you long.'
'Impossible,' replied the Jew. 'Sabbath will begin in five minutes, and
I absolutely cannot let myself be drawn into such a breach of Divine
Law. But if you choose to come early on Sunday morning you may see them
at your leisure.' The reverend gentleman accordingly turned up at eight
a.m. on Sunday, intending to remain there till church-time, he having to
do duty that day. He had provided himself with the overcoat which he
wore on his book-hunting expeditions, and which had pockets large enough
to swallow a good-sized folio. The literary treasures of the son of
Israel were much more numerous than the Gentile expected. At this time
there was not such a rush for Caxtons as we have witnessed since the
Roxburghe sale. Mr. Brand found one of these precious relics in a very
bad condition, although not past recovery, paid a trifling price for it,
and pocketed it. Then he successively examined some rare productions of
the presses of Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, and so forth. The clergyman's
purchases soon began to assume considerable proportions. Archimedes was
not more fully absorbed in his geometrical problems when the Roman
soldier killed him, than the East End clergyman in his careful
collations. He was aroused, however, from his reveries by the Jewess
calling out: 'Mike, dinner is ready.' 'Dinner!' exclaimed the parson.
'At what time do you dine?' 'At one o'clock,' she replied. He looked at
his watch. It was too true. He hastened home. In the meantime, the
beadle had been to his house, and finding he had left it in his usual
health, it was feared some accident had happened. The congregation then
dispersed, much concerned at the absence of the worthy pastor, who,
however, atoned in the evening, by unwonted eloquence, for his
unpremeditated prank of the morning.
HOLBORN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD.
As a second-hand bookselling locality, Holborn is one of the oldest of
those in which the trade is still carried on vigorously. As a
bookselling locality it has a record of close on three centuries and a
half. As early as 1558, a publisher was issuing cheap books in
connection with John Tisdale, at the Saracen's Head, in Holborn, near to
the Conduit, and in one of these booklets we are enjoined to
'Remember, man! both night and day,
Thou needs must die, there is no Nay.'
Probably the earliest, and certainly one of the earliest, books
published in Holborn was the 'Vision of Piers Plowman,' 'now fyrst
imprinted by Robert Crowley, dwellyng in Ely-rents in Holburne,' in
1550, which contains a very quaint address from the printer. In and
about the year 1584, Roger Warde, a very prolific publisher, was
dwelling near 'Holburne Conduit, at the sign of the "Talbot,"' and a
still more noteworthy individual, Richard Jones, lived hard by, at the
sign of the Rose and Crown.
Early in the seventeenth century, several members of the fraternity had
established themselves in and around Gray's Inn Gate, then termed, more
appropriately, Lane. Henrie Tomes published 'The Commendation of Cocks
and Cock-fighting' (1607), which, no doubt, the 'young bloods' of the
period perused much more diligently than more instructive and edifying
books with which Mr. Tomes also could have supplied them.
Its most famous bibliopolic resident, however, is Thomas Osborne, or Tom
Osborne, as he was called in the trade and by posterity. Tom Osborne's
fame began and ended with himself. Nobody knew whence he came, and
probably nobody cared. His catalogues cover a period of thirty
years--1738-1768--and include some very remarkable libraries of many
famous men. In stature he is described as short and thick, so that Dr.
Johnson's famous summary method of knocking him down[192:A] was not
perhaps so difficult a feat as is generally supposed. To his
inferiors--including, as he apparently but ruefully thought, Dr.
Johnson--he generally spoke in an authoritative and insolent manner. As
ignorant as Lackington, he was considerably less aware of the fact.
Osborne's shop, like that of Jacob Tonson[192:B] at the end of the
seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, was at the Gray's
Inn Road gate of, or entrance to, Gray's Inn. His greatest _coup_ was
the purchase of the Harleian Collection of books--the manuscripts were
bought by the British Museum for £10,000--for £13,000, in 1743. It is
said on good authority that the Earl of Oxford gave £18,000 for the
binding of only a part of them. In 1743-44, the extent of this
extraordinary collection was indicated by the 'Catalogus Bibliotheca
Harleianæ,' in four volumes. The first two, in Latin, were compiled by
Dr. Johnson at a daily wage, and the third and fourth (which are a
repetition of the first two), in English, are by Oldys. A charge of 5s.
was made for the first two volumes, which caused a good deal of
grumbling among the trade, and was resented 'as an avaricious
innovation,' but Osborne replied that the volumes could be either
returned in exchange for books or for the original purchase-money. He
was also charged with rating his books at too high a price, but a glance
through the catalogue will prove this to be an unjust accusation. The
copy of the Aldine Plato, 1513, on vellum, for which Lord Oxford gave
100 guineas, is priced by Osborne at £21. The sale of the books appears
to have been extremely slow, and Johnson assured Boswell that 'there was
not much gained by the bargain.' Nichols' 'Literary Anecdotes' (iii.
649-654) gives a list of the libraries which Osborne absorbed into his
stock at different times, but few of these are anything more than names
at the present day. Osborne is satirized in the 'Dunciad,' but,
according to Johnson, was so dull that he could not feel the poet's
gross satire. Sir John Hawkins states that Osborne used to boast that he
was worth £40,000, and doubtless this was true. His
'Bushy bob, well powder'd every day,
Bloom'd whiter than a hawthorn hedge in May,'
was one of his acquired peculiarities. Nichols tells us that the
expression 'rum books' arose from Osborne's sending unsaleable volumes
to Jamaica in exchange for rum.
But whilst Tom Osborne was _the_ bookseller of Holborn, there were many
others well established here during the last century, and whose names
have been handed down to us by the catalogues which they published.
William Cater, for instance, was issuing catalogues from Holborn in
1767, when he sold the libraries of Lord Willoughby, president of the
Society of Antiquaries, and in 1774 of Cudworth Bruck, another
antiquary. Cater was succeeded in 1786 by John Deighton, of Cambridge.
In the person of Henry Dell we get a literary bookseller, who had
established himself first in Tower Street, and in or about 1765 in
Holborn, where, Nichols tells us, he died very poor. He wrote 'The
Booksellers, a Poem,' 1766, which has been pronounced 'a wretched,
rhyming list of booksellers in London, and Westminster, with silly
commendations of some and stupid abuse of others.' Other Holborn
booksellers were: William Fox, 1773-1777; John Hayes, who died November
12, 1811, aged seventy-four, and 'whose abilities were of no ordinary
class, and his erudition very considerable'; John Anderson, of Holborn
Hill, 1787-1792, who sold the library of the Hon. John Scott, of Gray's
Inn; Francis Noble, who, besides being a bookseller, kept for many years
an extensive circulating library in Holborn, but who, in consequence of
his daughter's obtaining a share in the first £30,000 prize in the
lottery, retired from business, and died at an advanced age in June,
1792; Joseph White, 1779-1791; and William Flexney, who died January 7,
1808, aged seventy-seven, and who was the original publisher of
Churchill's 'Poems,' and is thus immortalized by that versatile 'poet':
'Let those who energy of diction prize,
For Billingsgate, quit Flexney, and be wise.'
Percival Stockdale, in his 'Memoirs,' speaks highly of his 'old friend'
Flexney, 'with whom I have passed many convivial and jovial hours.'
J. H. Prince, of Old North Street, Red Lion Square, Holborn, who wrote
and published his own eccentric 'Life' in 1806, and who, trying and
failing in nearly everything else, took to bookselling and book-writing,
evidently, like many other authors before and since, found soliciting
subscriptions for his book 'a most painful undertaking to a susceptible
mind.' His motto was, 'I evil ni etips,' or 'I live in spite.' A much
more important bookseller of Holborn was John Petheram, who lived at 94,
High Holborn in the fifties, and whose catalogues were styled 'The
Bibliographical Miscellany'; for some time, with each of his catalogues
he issued an eight-page supplement, which consisted of a reprint of some
very rare tract; the selection of some of these was in the hands of Dr.
E. F. Rimbault. A complete set of these catalogues would be extremely
interesting; we have only seen half a dozen of them, and these are in
the British Museum. A somewhat similar effort to give an extra interest
to catalogues was made a few years ago by J. W. Jarvis and Son, of King
William Street, and also by Pickering and Chatto, the Haymarket; but the
experiment apparently did not succeed.
[Illustration: _Middle Row, Holborn, 1865._]
Apart from Holborn, properly so called, Middle Row, an insulated row of
houses, abutting upon Holborn Bars, and nearly opposite Gray's Inn
Road, claims a notice here, for it was long a book-hunting locality, and
two bookshops, at least, existed there until the place was demolished in
August, 1867. Perhaps its most famous bookseller was John Cuthell, who
came to London from Scotland in 1771, and became assistant to Drew, of
Middle Row, whom he succeeded. He was publishing catalogues here from
1787, and did a very large export business with America. He was noted
for his stock of medical and scientific books. He was still at Middle
Row in 1813, when John Nichols published his 'Literary Anecdotes,' to
which he was a subscriber. Cuthell died at Turnham Green in 1828, aged
eighty-five. He was succeeded by Francis Macpherson, who issued the
thirtieth number of his catalogue in April, 1840, from No. 4, Middle
Row. The works offered comprised a selection of theological, classical,
and historical books. One of the most curious entries relates to an
extensive collection of books and pamphlets by and concerning the famous
Dr. Richard Bentley, five volumes in quarto, and thirty-one more in
octavo and duodecimo; the set (now, we believe, in the British Museum),
doubtless the most complete ever offered for sale, was priced at £25,
and was probably utilized in Dyce's editions of Bentley's
'Dissertations,' and in an edition of Bentley's 'Sermons at Boyle's
Lecture,' both of which Macpherson published. This catalogue is
interesting from the number of illustrations which it affords of the
transition period of English book-collecting; the various editions of
the classics are priced at very moderate figures, whilst English
classics are offered at comparatively 'fancy' sums. For example, a very
neat copy of the first edition of 'Tom Jones' is offered at 18s., and a
fine copy of John Bale's 'Image of Both Churches,' without date, but
printed by East at the latter part of the sixteenth century, at £1 7s.
J. Coxhead is another Holborn bookseller who may be regarded as a link
between the old and the new. He was at 249, High Holborn in 1840, and
had been established forty years. His lists were apparently issued only
once or twice a year; one of the notices in his catalogue may be quoted
here, as showing the chief medium by which country book-collectors were
supplied with their books: 'Gentlemen residing in the country had better
apply direct to J. Coxhead for any articles from this list, or they can
obtain them by giving the order to their country bookseller, and it will
be sent in their weekly parcel from London.' At about the same time, and
for nearly the same period, David Ogilby was selling second-hand books
at the same locality.
One of the most interesting of the Holborn booksellers was William
Darton, of 58, Holborn Hill, of whose shop we give an 'interior' view
from a plate engraved by Darton himself. William was a son of William
Darton, who founded the famous publishing house of Darton and Harvey, of
55, Gracechurch Street, in the latter part of the last century, their
speciality being children's books, which had a fame almost as extensive
as those of the great Mr. Newbery himself. He was joined by his brother
Thomas, and for two generations a successful business was carried on in
this place; the three generations of Dartons were prominent members of
the Society of Friends. The house chiefly devoted itself to publishing,
but it had a fairly large trade in selling the books issued by other
publishers. The firm ceased to exist about the time when the Holborn
Valley improvements swept away so many of the old landmarks of that
locality. Mr. Joseph W. Darton, the sole partner in Wells Gardner,
Darton and Co., is a grandson of the founder of the Holborn Hill house
and a great-grandson of the original William Darton. A history of the
Dartons would form as interesting a volume as that on John Newbery.
[Illustration: _William Darton, Bookseller_, The Founder of the House of
Darton and Harvey.]
Holborn is an additionally interesting book-locality from the fact that
it was from here that some of the first book-catalogues were issued.
This important innovation owes much to Charles Davis, whose shop was
'against Gray's Inn.' The earliest of these catalogues which we have
seen is a very interesting list of 168 pages octavo, and includes
'valuable libraries, lately purchased, containing near 12,000 volumes in
Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, and English,' 'which
will be sold very cheap, the lowest price fix'd in each book, on
Thursday, May 7, 1747.' The list is in many respects very curious, not
the least of which is that not one of the items offered is priced. One
of the facts which strike one most forcibly in this connection is the
large capitals which must have been sunk in books even at this early
period. Davis, like all the other booksellers--notably Tonson and
Lintot--of that period, was a bookseller as well as publisher.
[Illustration: _Interior of Darton's Shop, Holborn Hill._]
Moving further westward, we find records of bookselling for just a
couple of centuries back. Robert Kettlewell was established at the Hand
and Sceptre, King's Street, Bloomsbury, whence he issued his kinsman's
apparently useful, and certainly very dull, pamphlet, entitled 'Death
Made Comfortable; or, The Way to Die Well,' and sold a variety of other
books besides. Making a leap of nearly a century, we meet with Samuel
Hayes, of Oxford Street, and evidently a relative of John Hayes, to whom
we have already referred. Samuel Hayes--when not in a French prison, for
he was actually incarcerated by Napoleon when on a visit to France--was
at this place of business for sixteen years, 1779 to 1795, and published
several catalogues. Isaac Herbert, nephew of the editor of Ames'
'Typographical Antiquities,' was selling books in Great Russell Street
in and about 1795; Joseph Bell was established as a bookseller in Oxford
Street in the earlier part of the present century; Shepperson and
Reynolds were in the same thoroughfare from 1784 to 1793, and sold
several very good libraries within the period indicated. Writing in
1790, Pennant mentions that the chapel of Southampton, or Bedford House,
Bloomsbury, was at that time rented by Lockyer Davis as a magazine of
books. How long it had been in Davis's tenancy is not certain, but he
died in 1791. William Davis, the author of several interesting
bibliographical books, including two 'Journeys Round the Library of a
Bibliomaniac,' was at the Bedford Library, Southampton Row, Holborn,
during the early part of the century. Name after name might be quoted if
any useful purpose would be served.
[Illustration: _James Westell's, 114, Oxford Street._]
There are many links which still connect the Holborn of to-day with the
Holborn and immediate district of the past. Three have, however, passed
away within recent years. Edward W. Stibbs, whose death occurred in the
spring of 1891, at the age of eighty, and whose stock was sold at
Sotheby's in the following year, was one of the veterans of the trade,
and was essentially of the old school--the school which confined itself
almost exclusively to classics. The second removal is that of Mr. J.
Brown, whose shop was nearly opposite the entrance to Chancery Lane, and
was for nearly thirty years an exceedingly pleasant rendezvous of
book-collectors, and whose proprietor was one of the most genial of
bibliopoles. The third is Edward Truelove, of 256, High Holborn, the
well-known agnostic bookseller, who removed here from the Strand, and
who had been in business over forty years. Mr. Truelove retired two or
three years since. Further up the road, in New Oxford Street, we find
the shop of Mr. James Westell, whose career as a bookseller embraces a
period of over half a century, having started in 1841. Mr. Westell
first began in a small shop in Bozier's Court, Tottenham Court Road, and
this shop has been immortalized by Lord Lytton in 'My Novel,' for it is
here that Leonard Fairfield's friendly bookseller was situated.[201:A]
Bozier's Court was a sort of eddy from the constant stream which passes
in and out of Oxford Street, and many pleasant hours have been spent in
the court by book-lovers. After Mr. Westell left, it passed into the
hands of another bookseller, G. Mazzoni, and finally into that of Mr. E.
Turnbull, who speaks very highly of it as a bookselling locality. Mr.
Turnbull added another shop to the one which was occupied by Mr.
Westell; but when the inevitable march of improvements overtook this
quaint place three or four years ago, Mr. Turnbull had to leave, and he
then took a large shop in New Oxford Street, where he now is. During Mr.
Turnbull's tenancy in Bozier's Court several rivals started round about
him; but one after another failed to make it pay, and retired, leaving
him eventually in entire possession. Another old Holborn bookseller, Mr.
George Glashier, who started in 1841, still has a large shop in
Southampton Row; not the shop which he occupied for very many years
within a few yards of Holborn, but nearer Russell Square, a less crowded
thoroughfare than the old place in the same street or row. The shop now
occupied by Mr. A. Reader, in Orange Street, Red Lion Square, has been a
bookseller's for over half a century, one of the most noted tenants of
it being Mr. John Salkeld, who removed nearly twenty years since to
Clapham Road, and whose charmingly rustic shop, 'Ivy House,' is quite
one of the sights of bookish London.
[Illustration: _Salkeld's Shop--'Ivy House'--in Clapham Road._]
Indeed, nearly every by-street,[202:A] as well as the public highway in
and around Holborn, has had its bookseller ever since the beginning of
the century. Lord Macaulay, C. W. Dilke, W. J. Thoms, Edward Solly, John
Forster, and the visions of many other mighty book-hunters, crowd on
one's memory in grubbing about after old books in this ancient and
attractive, if not always particularly savoury, locality. The two
Turnstiles have always been favourites with bibliopoles. Writing in
1881, the late Mr. Thoms said: 'Many years ago I received one of the
curious catalogues periodically issued by Crozier, then of Little
Turnstile, Holborn. From a pressure of business or some other cause, I
did not look through it until it had been in my possession for two or
three days, and then I saw in it an edition of "Mist's Letters" in three
volumes! In two volumes the book is common enough, but I had never heard
of a third volume; neither does Bohn in his edition of Lowndes mention
its existence. Of course, on this discovery, I lost no time in making my
way to Little Turnstile; and on asking for the "Mist" in three volumes,
found, as I had feared, that it was sold. "Who was the lucky purchaser?"
I asked anxiously; adding, "Aut Dilke aut Diabolus!" "It was not
Diabolus," was Crozier's reply; and I was reconciled when I found the
book had fallen into such good hands, and not a little surprised when
Crozier went on to say, "But he was not the first to apply for it. Mr.
Forster sent for it, but would not keep it, because it was not a
sufficiently nice copy."' Both the Great and the Little Turnstiles,
Holborn, have always been, as we have said, famous as book-hunting
localities, and they still preserve this reputation. In 1636 a
publisher and bookseller, George Hutton, was at the 'Sign of the Sun,
within the Turning Stile in Holborne.' J. Bagford, the celebrated
book-destroyer, was first a shoemaker in the Great Turnstile, a calling
in which he was not successful. Then he became a bookseller at the same
place, and still success was denied him. At Dulwich College is a library
which includes a collection of plays formed by Cartwright, a bookseller
of the Turnstile, who subsequently turned actor.
[Illustration: _John Bagford, Shoemaker and Book-destroyer._]
[Illustration: _Mr. Tregaskis's Shop--'The Caxton Head'--in Holborn._
(After a Drawing by E. J. Wheeler.)]