that of Mr. and Mrs. Tregaskis, at No. 232, the corner of the New
Turnstile. The house itself is full of interest, and is quite a couple
of hundred years old. A century ago one of the most eventful scenes of
David Garrick's career was enacted here, for it was from this house that
the great actor was buried. Mrs. Tregaskis first started, as Mrs.
Bennett, at the corner of Southampton Row, and some time after removing
to her present shop, married Mr. James Tregaskis, and the two together
have built up a business which is scarcely without a rival in London.
The shop is literally crammed with rare and interesting books, whilst
'The Caxton Head Catalogues' are got up with every possible care. Almost
next door to the shop for many years occupied by the late Edward
Stibbs, Mr. Walter T. Spencer carries on a trade which is almost
entirely confined to first editions of modern authors. From Mr. R. J.
Parker's shop at 204, the present writer has picked up a very large
number of rare and interesting books, including a first edition of
Goldsmith--not, however, the 'Vicar'--at exceedingly moderate sums. Mr.
E. Menken, of Bury Street, New Oxford Street, is one of the most
successful booksellers of recent years, and his stock is both large and
select. Mr. Menken first started in Gray's Inn Road, nearly opposite the
Town Hall, five or six years ago, subsequently removing to Bury Street;
but his business grew so rapidly that he had to take the adjoining shop
into his service. Mr. Menken's model catalogues invariably contain
something which every book collector feels it is absolutely necessary
to have. He is a man of versatile abilities, literary and otherwise, and
includes among his customers no less a person than Mr. Gladstone.
Messrs. Bull and Auvache, of 35, Hart Street, Bloomsbury, are extensive
dealers in editions of the classics and Bibles. At one time there were
no less than four second-hand booksellers in Hyde Street, New Oxford
Street, but at present there is only one. Next door but one to Mudie's,
we have the shop of Mr. James Roche, who is a link with the past, having
started in 1850, and for many years carried on business in a little
corner shop in Southampton Row, one door from the Holborn highway.
Messrs. J. Rimell and Sons, noted for their extensive collection of
works on the fine arts and architecture, are at 91, Oxford Street. Among
the literary booksellers of the first quarter of the present century,
William Goodhugh, of 155, Oxford Street, deserves a mention here. 'The
English Gentleman's Library Manual,' 1827, is his best-known work,
although from a literary standpoint it is a poor concern; he also wrote
'Gates' to the French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac,
'unlocked by new and easy methods.' Goodhugh was conversant with several
of the Oriental and many European languages. His knowledge of books was
a very extensive and profound one, and as a literary bookseller he is an
interesting figure in the annals of bibliopolic history. Fifty years ago
many good books were picked up out of 'Miller's Catalogue of Cheap
Books,' which appeared monthly from 404, Oxford Street, that for
September, 1845, being numbered 127. A quarter of a century ago there
were several booksellers in Oxford Street, _e.g._, G. A. Davies, at 417;
W. Heath, at 497; J. Kimpton, at 303; E. Lumley, at 514; J. Pettit, at
528; and Whittingham.
[Illustration: _Day's Circulating Library in Mount Street._]
The further west one goes, the less interesting do the annals of
bookselling become, for Oxford Street is essentially a modern locality,
and second-hand bookselling never has thrived much in new localities. It
was, however, when rummaging over the contents of a stall in a Wardour
Street alley that Charles Lamb lighted upon a ragged duodecimo, which
had been the delight of his infancy. The price demanded was sixpence,
which the owner, himself a squab little duodecimo of a character,
enforced with the asseverance that his own mother should not have it for
a farthing less, supplementing the assertion with an oath and 'Now, I
have put my soul to it.' The book was the 'Queen Like Closet,' which, it
is scarcely necessary to say, Elia rescued from the man of profanity.
Soho has long been more or less of a bookselling quarter. John Paul
Manson, who was in King Street, Westminster, in 1786, and issued from
thence 'A Summer Catalogue' in 1795, subsequently removed to Gerard
Street, Soho, and died in 1812. He was especially well versed, not only
in Caxtons, but in all the best works of the early printers, and many
English black-letter books passed through his hands. Dibdin observes
that Professor Heyne could not have exhibited greater signs of joy at
the sight of the Towneley manuscript of Homer than did Manson on the
discovery of Rastell's 'Pastyme of the People' among the books of Mr.
Brand. Two sons of this Manson subsequently became partners in the firm
of Christie, the art auctioneers. The first Sampson Low started as a
bookseller in Berwick Street, Soho, in or about 1790.
Day's Library, the second oldest existing circulating library in London
(the oldest is that of Cawthorn and Hutt, established in 1744, Cockspur
Street), has continued from the year 1776 within a few hundred yards of
its present situation. In that year a Mr. Dangerfield established it on
the north side of Berkeley Square, and it was purchased from him by Mr.
Rice in 1810 or 1811, under whom it largely developed in extent and
reputation. In 1818 he removed into the adjoining Mount Street at No.
123 (south side), where for about fifty years the library remained.
Meanwhile it became the property of Mr. Hoby, and after one or two
changes successively of Mr. John and Mr. Charles Day, father and son. In
Mr. John Day's hands it crossed the road to No. 16 on the north side,
and remained there about twenty-four years, till that part of Mount
Street was cleared to make way for the present Carlos Place. Then in the
year 1890 it again crossed the road to No. 96, where Mr. Charles Day
holds a long lease. An early catalogue of the institution shows that the
eighteenth-century circulating libraries contained a portion of the
weightier works, such as history, biography, travels, etc., a fact which
is rarely realized in the face of the popular impression that it was
left to the late Mr. C. E. Mudie to supply such works.
ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD AND NEIGHBOURHOOD.
[Illustration: Paternoster Row on a Bank Holiday.]
The bookselling and book-hunting annals of the district which starts
with St. Paul's, and terminates at Charing Cross, might occupy a
goodly-sized volume. We must of necessity be brief, chiefly because both
Paternoster Row and St. Paul's Churchyard have been, for the most part,
book-publishing rather than second-hand bookselling localities. As a
literary highway, Paternoster Row is of considerable antiquity, for
Robert Rikke, a paternoster-maker and citizen, had a shop here in the
time of Henry IV., and there can be no question that its name originated
from the fact that it was at a very early period the residence of the
makers of paternosters, or prayer-beads. Before the Great Fire of 1666,
Paternoster Row was not much of a bookselling centre, for it was
inhabited chiefly by mercers, silkmen, and lacemen, whose shops were a
fashionable resort of the gentry who resided at that time in the
immediate vicinity. After the Fire, the Row gradually became famous for
its booksellers, or rather publishers, who resided at first near the
east end, and whose large warehouses were 'well situated for learned and
studious men's access thither, being more retired and private.' Although
the book-annals of Paternoster Row chiefly deal with matters subsequent
to the Great Fire, there were many publishers and booksellers there over
a hundred years before that calamity. In and about 1558 there were, for
example, two of the fraternity here established--Richard Lant and Henry
Sutton, the latter's shop being at the sign of the Black Morion. For
over twenty years, 1565 to 1587, Henry Denham was at the Star in
Paternoster Row, whence he issued, among a large number of other books,
George Turberville's 'Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonnets' in 1570.
The last century, however, witnessed the rise of Paternoster Row as a
publishing locality. From 1678 and onwards book-auctions were held at
the Hen and Chickens at nine in the morning; at the Golden Lion over
against the Queen's Head Tavern, Paternoster Row, at nine in the morning
and two in the afternoon, and at other places both in the Row and in its
numerous tributaries, such as Ivy Lane, Ave Maria Lane, etc. Although
some of the earliest book-auctions held in this country took place in
the immediate vicinity of Paternoster Row, and although it had attained
a world-wide celebrity as a publishing centre, it has very few
interesting records as a second-hand bookselling locality. Awnsham and
John Churchill were located at the Black Swan in 1700; William Taylor,
the publisher of 'Robinson Crusoe,' 1719, was here at the sign of the
Ship early in the last century, and was succeeded by Thomas Longman in
1725, the present handsome pile of buildings, erected in 1863, being on
the original spot occupied in part by the founder of the firm. The
Longmans had a second-hand department attached to their house in the
early part of the present century, as we have already seen. Others which
may be here mentioned as being connected with the Row are Baldwin and
Cradock; and Ralph Griffiths, of the 'Dunciad'--'those significant
emblems, the owl and long-eared animal, which Mr. Griffiths so sagely
displays for the mirth and information of mankind'--for whom Goldsmith
wrote reviews in a miserable garret. The last firm of second-hand
booksellers of note who thrived in Paternoster Row was that of William
Baynes and Son; and the last of the race is still remembered by the
older generation of book-collectors, with his old-time appearance in
frills and gaiters. In 1826 Baynes published one of the most remarkable
catalogues (254 pages) of books printed in the fifteenth century which
has ever appeared. It is full of extremely valuable bibliographical
information. For many years John Wheldon, the natural history
bookseller, had a shop, chiefly for the sale of back numbers of
periodicals, at 4, Paternoster Row (as well as in Great Queen Street),
and this little shop subsequently passed into the tenancy of Jesse
Salisbury, who was there until six or seven years ago. The Chapter
Coffee-house, where so many important publishing schemes have been
mooted and carried out, still lingers in the Row, but modernized out of
all recognition.
The chief interest of St. Paul's Churchyard as a book locality centres
itself in the publishing rather than the second-hand bookselling phase.
One of our earliest printer-publishers, Julian Notary, was 'dwellynge in
powles chyrche yarde besyde ye weste dore by my lordes palyes' in 1515,
his shop sign being the Three Kings. At the sign of the White Greyhound,
in St. Paul's Churchyard, the first editions of Shakespeare's 'Venus and
Adonis' and 'Rape of Lucrece' were published by John Harrison; at the
Fleur de Luce and the Crown appeared the first edition of the 'Merry
Wives of Windsor'; at the Green Dragon the first edition of the
'Merchant of Venice'; at the Fox the first edition of 'Richard II.';
whilst the first editions of 'Richard III.,' 'Troilus and Cressida,'
'Titus Andronicus,' and 'Lear' all bear Churchyard imprints.
Not only were there very many booksellers' shops around the Yard, but at
the latter part of the sixteenth century bookstalls started up, first at
the west, and subsequently at the other doors of the cathedral. From a
letter addressed by Sir Clement Edmonds, March 28, 1620, to the Lord
Mayor, we gather that two houses were erected at the west gate of St.
Paul's without the sanction of the authorities, and these were ordered
to be removed, as were also certain 'sheds or shops that were being
erected near the same place.' A chief portion of the stock of these
shops and stalls would naturally be devotional books of various
descriptions. That these books were not always to be relied on we infer
from an amusing anecdote in the Harleian manuscripts, related by Sir
Nicholas L'Estrange, to the effect that 'Dr. Us[s]her, Bishop of Armath,
having to preach at Paules Crosse, and passing hastily by one of the
stationers, called for a Bible, and had a little one of the London
edition given him out, but when he came to looke for his text, that very
verse was omitted in the print.'
[Illustration: _John Evelyn, Book-collector._]
Mr. Pepys' bookseller, Joshua Kirton, was at the sign of the King's
Arms. Writing under date November 2, 1660, Pepys chronicles: 'In Paul's
Churchyard I called at Kirton's, and there they had got a masse book for
me, which I bought, and cost me 12s., and, when I come home, sat up late
and read in it with great pleasure to my wife, to hear that she was long
ago acquainted with it.' Kirton was one of the most extensive sufferers
of the bookselling fraternity in the Great Fire; from being a
substantial tradesman with about £8,000 to the good, he was made £2,000
or £3,000 'worse than nothing.' The destruction of books and literary
property generally, in and around St. Paul's, in this fire was enormous,
Pepys calculating it at about £150,000, and Evelyn putting it at
£200,000, or, in other words, about one million sterling as represented
by our money of to-day. Evelyn tells us that soon after the fire had
subsided the other trades went on as merrily as before, 'only the poor
booksellers have been indeed ill-treated by Vulcan; so many noble
impressions consumed by their trusting them to y{e} churches.'
[Illustration: _Newbery's Shop in St. Paul's Churchyard._
From an old woodcut.]
One of the most considerable of the Churchyard booksellers after the
Great Fire was Richard Chiswell, the father or progenitor of a numerous
family of bibliopoles. John Dunton, indeed, describes him as well
deserving of the title of 'Metropolitan Bookseller of England, if not of
all the world.' He was born in 1639, and died in 1711. In 1678 he sold,
in conjunction with John Dunmore, another bookseller, the libraries of
Dr. Benjamin Worsley and two other eminent men. At St. Paul's
Coffee-house, which stood at the corner of the entrance from St. Paul's
Churchyard to Doctors' Commons, the library of Dr. Rawlinson was, in
1711, sold--'at a prodigious rate,' according to Thoresby--in the
evening after dinner. Although not quite _à propos_ of our subject, we
can scarcely help mentioning the name of so celebrated a Churchyard
publisher as John Newbery, who lived at No. 65, the original site being
now covered by the buildings of the R.T.S.; his successors, Griffith and
Farran, were at No. 81 until the year 1889, when they moved westward. F.
and C. Rivington were at No. 62 for many years, as Peter Pindar tells
us:
'In Paul's churchyard, the Bible and the Key,
This wondrous pair is always to be seen,--
Somewhat the worse for wear--a little grey--
One like a saint, and one with Cæsar's mien.'
A mere list of the Churchyard booksellers would fill a goodly-sized
volume. In addition to those already mentioned, one of the most famous
and successful families who resided here were the Knaptons, where,
during the first three quarters of the last century, they built up an
enormous trade, and were succeeded by Robert Horsfield, who carried on
the business in Ludgate Street, and died in 1798. We possess one of the
interesting catalogues of James and John Knapton, whose shop was at the
sign of the Crown. It runs to twenty pages octavo, and enumerates an
extraordinary variety of literature. The books written and sermons
preached by right reverends and reverends occupy the first five pages,
arranged according to the authors' names; and then follow the works of
ordinary, commonplace mortals, sermons and Aphra Behn's romances, Mr.
Dryden's plays and the 'Whole Duty of Man' appearing cheek-by-jowl.
The most important contribution to the earlier history of bookselling
appeared from St. Paul's Churchyard in the shape of Robert Clavell's
'General Catalogue of Books printed in England since the Dreadful Fire,
1666, to the End of Trinity Term, 1676.' This catalogue was continued
every term till 1700, and includes an abstract of the bills of
mortality. The books are classified under their respective headings of
divinity, history, physic and surgery, miscellanies, chemistry, etc.,
the publisher's name in each case being given. Dunton describes Clavell
as 'an eminent bookseller' and 'a great dealer,' whilst Dr. Barlow,
Bishop of Lincoln, distinguished him by the term of 'the honest
bookseller.' Clavell's shop was at the sign of the Stag's Head, whilst
his partner in many of his projects was Henry Brome, of the Sun, also in
the Churchyard.
Joseph Johnson, the Dry Bookseller of Beloe, demands a short notice
here. He was born at Liverpool in 1738, and after serving an
apprenticeship with George Keith, Gracechurch Street, began business for
himself on Fish Street Hill, which, being in the track of the medical
students at the hospitals in the Borough, was a promising locality.
After some years here, he removed to Paternoster Row, where he had as
partners first a Mr. Davenport, and then John Payne; the house and stock
were destroyed by fire in 1770, after which he removed to St. Paul's
Churchyard, where he continued until his death in 1809, the father of
the trade. He was a considerable publisher, and 'two poets of great
modern celebrity were by him first introduced to the publick--Cowper and
Darwin.' Whilst at Fish Street Hill he took over the stock of John Ward,
of which he issued a catalogue.
Ludgate Hill to a certain degree not unnaturally secured a little of the
'bookish' brilliancy which diffused itself round and about the
Churchyard. The highway to the cathedral was naturally a good business
quarter, and there can be very little doubt that some of the stalls or
booths, which formed a sort of middle row in Ludgate, were occupied by
stationers and booksellers, who are not usually indifferent to the
advantages of a good thoroughfare. It never, however, came up to St.
Paul's Churchyard, either as a publishing or as a bookselling locality;
but many retailers were here during the latter part of the last century.
Queen Charlotte, wife of George III., is reported by Robert Huish to
have said to Mrs. Delany: 'You cannot think what nice books I pick up at
bookstalls, or how cheap I buy them.' The Rev. Dr. Croby, in his 'Life
of George IV.,' tells us that Queen Charlotte was in the habit of paying
visits, in company with some lady-in-waiting, to Holywell Street and
Ludgate Hill, 'where second-hand books were exposed for sale during the
last half of the eighteenth century.' During the earlier part of this
period, among the booksellers of note in Ludgate Street were Robert
Horsfield, William Johnston, and Richard Ware (who was a considerable
adventurer in new publications). The business established at about the
same period and in the same locality by Richard Manley, was considerably
extended by John Pridden (1728-1807). The libraries of many eminent and
distinguished characters passed through his hands, Nichols tells us. His
offers in purchasing them were liberal, and, being content with small
profits, 'he soon found himself supported by a numerous and respectable
set of friends, not one of whom ever quitted him.'
Jonah Bowyer was at the Rose, in Ludgate Street, in and about the year
1706, when he published the Lord Bishop of Oxford's 'Sermons preached
before the Queen' at St. Paul's in May of that year; and it was either
this Bowyer or William Bowyer--the two were not related--who established
a bookselling department on the frozen Thames in 1716. William Johnston,
who died at a very advanced age in 1804, was one of the most successful
of Ludgate Hill booksellers, and his employées included George Robinson
and Thomas Evans, each of whom became the founder of a very extensive
business. George Conyers was at the Ring, Ludgate Hill, for some years
during the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and prior to his
removal to Little Britain. Conyers dealt chiefly in Grub Street
compilations, which included cheap and handy guides to everything on
earth, and it is likely that his shop was a literary or book-collecting
resort. The most famous bibliopole who had a shop in Ludgate is perhaps
William Hone, to whom the liberty of the press owes so much, and who
removed here from his house at the corner of Ship Court, Old Bailey.
Trübner and Co. left Ludgate Hill soon after they amalgamated with Kegan
Paul, Trench and Co.
FLEET STREET.
The Churchyard is, of course, the home of bookselling, but, as we have
seen, as time went on, its children, so to speak, repudiated their
birthplace. In the middle of the sixteenth century, for example, Fleet
Street contained nearly as many bookshops as the parent locality. In
addition to this, England's second printer, Wynkyn de Worde, abandoning
the Westminster house of his master, William Caxton, took up his
residence in Fleet Street in or about the year 1500. The sign of his
shop was the Sun, 'agaynste the Condyte,' and as the Conduit stood at
the lower end of Fleet Street, a little eastward of Shoe Lane, we get
some idea of the exact locality. He was buried in St. Bride's Churchyard
in 1534. W. Griffith was busy at the sign of the Falcon, near St.
Dunstan's Church, printing booklets about current events with 'flowery'
titles, and these books he sold at his second shop, designated the
Griffin, 'a little above the Conduit,' in Fleet Street. William Powell,
at the George, was publishing religious books of various sorts, and a
'Description of the Countrey of Aphrique,' a translation of a French
book on Africa, which was perhaps the very first on a topic now pretty
nearly threadbare. Richard Tottell was dwelling at the Hand and Star,
between the two temple gates, and just within Temple Bar,[217:A] whence
he sent forth books by a score and more distinguished men, and whose
name is worthily linked with those of Littleton, More, Tusser, Grafton,
Boccaccio, and many others. In 1577 Elizabeth granted the same
individual the privilege of printing 'all kinds of "Law bookes," which
was common to all printers, who selleth the same bookes at excessive
prices, to the hindrance of a greate nomber of pore students.' Other
Fleet Street booksellers were William Copland, who issued a number of
books, T. and W. Powell, and Henry Wykes.
Two of the earliest Fleet Street booksellers, Robert Redman and Richard
Pynson, quickly got at loggerheads, the bone of contention being
Pynson's device or mark, which his rival stole. These are the
neighbourly terms which Pynson applies to Redman; they occur at the end
of a new edition of Littleton's 'Tenures,' 1525: 'Behold I now give to
thee, candid reader, a Lyttleton corrected (not deceitfully) of the
errors which occurred in him. I have been careful that not my printing
only should be amended, but also that with a more elegant type it should
go forth to the day: that which hath escaped from the hands of Robert
Redman, but truly Rudeman, because he is the rudest out of a thousand
men, is not easily understood. Truly I wonder now at last that he hath
confessed it his own typography, unless it chanced that even as the
Devil made a cobbler a mariner, he hath made him a Printer. Formerly
this scoundrel did profess himself a Bookseller, as well skilled as if
he had started forth from Utopia. He knows well that he is free who
pretendeth to books, although it be nothing more.' This pretty little
quarrel continued some time, and broke out with renewed vigour on one or
two subsequent occasions; but the rivals ultimately became friends, and
when Pynson retired from business, he made over his stock to 'this
scoundrel' Redman, who then removed to Pynson's shop, next to St.
Dunstan's Church.