great one, and just as Holywell Street sheltered the Grub-writers of
half a century ago, so Drury Lane and its immediate vicinity was their
recognised locality in the earlier part of the last century. It is
impossible to associate respectability, to say nothing of fashion, with
this evil-smelling, squalid thoroughfare. And yet there can be no
question about its having been at one time an aristocratic quarter.
Until within the last few years, the Lane itself, and its numerous
tributaries, contained many second-hand bookshops. The most celebrated,
and, indeed, almost the only one of any interest, was Andrew Jackson,
who made a speciality of old and black-letter books. Nichols tells us
that for more than forty years he kept a shop in Clare Market, and here,
'like another Magliabecchi, midst dust and cobwebs, he indulged his
appetite for reading; legends and romances, history and poetry, were
indiscriminately his favourite pursuits.' In 1740 he published the first
book of 'Paradise Lost' in rhyme, and ten years afterwards a number of
modernizations from Chaucer. The contents of his catalogues of the years
1756, 1757, 1759, and one without date, were in rhyme. He retired in
1777, and died in July, 1778, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.
Charles Marsh, another literary bookseller, was for some time a friend
and neighbour of Jackson's. Marsh (who afterwards removed to a shop now
swallowed by the improvements in Northumberland Avenue, Charing Cross)
was situated at Cicero's Head, in New Round Court, off the Strand, and
is described by one who knew him as being afflicted with 'a very unhappy
temper, and withal very proud and insolent, with a plentiful share of
conceit.' He wrote a poem entitled 'The Library, an Epistle from a
Bookseller to a Gentleman, his Customer; desiring him to discharge his
bill,' 1766. He was originally a church-clerk. The only catalogue of
this celebrity which we have seen is a bulky one, over 100 pages octavo,
enumerating 3,000 books, 'among which are included the libraries of the
Rev. Mr. Gilbert Burnet, Minister of Clerkenwell, and an eminent
apothecary, both lately deceased.' The date is May 7, 1747. Some of the
prices in this catalogue can only be described as absurd; for example,
Lydgate's 'Bochas; or, The Fall of Princes,' 1517, 5s.; a collection of
old plays and poems, two volumes, 1592, 6s.; Tusser's 'Five Hundred
Points of Good Husbandry,' 1574, 2s. 6d.; and black-letter books by the
score are here offered at sums from one to three or four shillings each.
The neighbourhood has for many years ceased to be a bookselling
locality, for although book-hunters prefer side-streets and quiet
thoroughfares for the prosecution of their hobby, the pestiferous
vapours of Drury Lane would kill any bibliopolic growth more vigorous
than a newsvendor's shop.
[Illustration: _Messrs. Sotheran's Shop in Piccadilly._]
When, by slow degrees, the various trades moved in a direction west of
Temple Bar, it was only natural that the trade in second-hand books
should be similarly attracted. The Strand itself, which, at the end of
the last century and beginning of the present, was a much narrower
street than it is now, is not, and never has been, a great
book-emporium, for a reason which we have more than once pointed out.
But the immediate vicinity has been for over a century and a half, as it
still continues to be, the favourite locality of some of the chief
booksellers. To-day the Strand proper only contains three
representatives, in Messrs. H. Sotheran and Co., the finer of whose two
shops is in Piccadilly, and Mr. David Nutt (both of whom are, however,
vendors of new books, and often act as publishers), and Messrs.
Walford. Within a stone's-throw of the main thoroughfare we have John
Galwey and Suckling and Galloway, Garrick Street; James Gunn and
Nattali, Bedford Street; B. F. Stevens, Trafalgar Square; H. Fawcett,
King Street; W. Wesley and Sons, Essex Street; and many others. One of
the most interesting incidents in connection with the Strand relates to
a house which stood between Arundel and Norfolk Streets, where, at the
end of the seventeenth century, lived the father of Bishop Burnet. 'This
house,' says Dr. Hughson, writing in 1810, 'continued in the Burnet
family till within living memory, being possessed by a bookseller of the
same name--a collateral descendant of the Bishop.' Of much more
importance, however, is the fact that at 132, Strand a bookseller named
Wright started, about 1730, the first circulating library in London.
About ten years afterwards he was succeeded by William Bathoe ('a very
intelligent bookseller' who died in October, 1768), who carried on the
circulating library in addition to bookselling. Bathoe was a
book-auctioneer as well as a retail vendor; he sold the books of
'William Hogarth, Esq., sergeant-painter,' under the hammer. In or about
the year 1747 he had established himself 'in Church Lane, near St.
Martin's Church in the Strand, almost opposite York Buildings,' whence
he issued a thirty-eight-paged (octavo) catalogue, comprising the
'valuable library of the learned James Thompson Esq., deceased, with the
collection of a gentleman lately gone abroad'; this list enumerates
nearly 1,000 items, the prices, ranging from 6d. upwards, being
uniformly low. Walton's 'Compleat Angler,' 1661, 'with neat cuts,' would
not be long unsold at 3s. 6d.; and the same may be said of Purchas's
'Pilgrimage,' 1617, 2s. 6d.; of Rochester's complete poems at 2s.; and
very many others. At 'No. 18 in the Strand' lived J. Mathews, the
bookseller, and father of Charles Mathews, the actor; and in this house
the latter was born. Jacob Tonson was at 'Shakespeare's Head, over
against Catherine Street, in the Strand,' now 141; the house, since
rebuilt, was afterwards occupied by Andrew Millar, who deposed
Shakespeare, and erected Buchanan's Head instead. Millar was succeeded
by his friend and apprentice, Thomas Cadell (who became a partner in
1765), in 1767; he retired in 1793. Cadell's son then became head of the
concern, and took William Davies into partnership. The firm of Cadell
and Davies existed until the death of the latter in 1820, after which
Cadell (the Opulent Bookseller of Beloe) continued it in his own name
until his death in 1836. Samuel Bagster; Whitmore and Fenn; J. Walter
(an apprentice of Robert Dodsley, and the founder of the _Times_);
William Brown (an apprentice of Sandby), Essex Street, who died in 1797,
and who was succeeded by Robert Bickerstaff; Henry Chapman, Chandos
Street, 1790-1795; W. Lowndes; and Walter Wilson, of the Mews Gate, were
Strand booksellers of more or less note during the latter part of the
last, and the earlier part of the present, century.
CHARING CROSS AND NEIGHBOURHOOD.
John Millan was one of the most famous of Charing Cross or Whitehall
booksellers, for he was located here for over half a century, dying in
1784, aged over eighty-one years. Richard Gough drew the following
picture of Millan's shop in March, 1772: 'On my return from Westminster
last night, I penetrated the utmost recesses of Millan's shop, which, if
I may borrow an idea from natural history, is incrusted with literature
and curiosities like so many stalactitical exudations. Through a narrow
alley, between piles of books, I reached a cell, or _adytum_, whose
sides were so completely cased with the same _supellex_ that the
fireplace was literally _enchâsse dans la muraille_. In this cell sat
the deity of the place, at the head of a whist party, which was
interrupted by my inquiry after _Dillenius_ in sheets. The answer was,
he "had none in sheets or blankets." . . . I emerged from this shop,
which I consider as a future Herculaneum, where we shall hereafter root
out many scarce things now rotting on the floor, considerably sunk below
the level of the new pavement.' Millan was succeeded by Thomas and John
Egerton, the latter being 'a bookseller of great eminence'--the
Black-letter Bookseller of Beloe--whose death occurred in 1795. 'It was
in his time,' says Beloe, 'that Old English books, of a particular
description both in prose and verse, were, for some cause or
other--principally, perhaps, as they were of use in the illustration of
Shakespeare--beginning to assume a new dignity and importance, and to
increase in value at the rate of 500 per cent.' Another Charing Cross
bookseller, Samuel Leacroft (who succeeded Charles Marsh), died in 1795,
and it is rather curious that John Egerton was a son-in-law of Lockyer
Davis, whilst his neighbour was an apprentice.
Of Samuel Baker, whose shop was in Russell Street, Covent Garden, we
have already spoken in our account of book-auctioneers. One of his
early--May, 1747--catalogues (not auction) comprises the libraries of
Dr. Robert Uvedale, and of this divine's son and namesake, also a D.D.,
of Enfield; it enumerates over 3,000 items. Thomas Becket (an apprentice
of Millar, and Sterne's first publisher) and P. De Hondt were successful
Strand booksellers; the former finally settled himself in Pall Mall, and
was one of the first to make a speciality of foreign books, of which he
imported large quantities between 1761 and 1766. C. Heydinger, of the
Strand, was a German bookseller who issued catalogues from 1771 to 1773,
and who died in distressed circumstances about 1778. Henry Lasher
Gardner, who died at a very advanced age in 1808, was a venerable
bookseller, whose shop was opposite St. Clement's Church, Strand; he
published catalogues between 1786 and 1793. William Otridge, at first
alone, and afterwards in partnership with his son, issued catalogues
from the Strand during the last quarter of the last century. In 1796
Joseph Pote was selling books at the Golden Door, over against Suffolk
Street, Charing Cross. John Nourse (died 1780), bookseller to his
Majesty, was another celebrated bibliopole of the Strand, and is
described by John Nichols as 'a man of science, particularly in the
mathematical line.' Francis Wingrave succeeded Nourse.
One of the most celebrated booksellers of this neighbourhood during the
last half of the eighteenth century was Tom Davies, who sported his
rubric posts[237:A] in Russell Street, Covent Garden, and who was driven
from his position as actor in Garrick's company by Churchill's killing
satire:
'He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.'
In spite of satirists, the verdict of his contemporaries is ratified, so
to speak, in voting Tom Davies a good fellow. Dr. John Campbell
described him as 'not a bookseller, but a gentleman dealing in books';
and the Rev. P. Stockdale described him as 'the most gentleman-like
person of that trade whom I ever knew.' Dr. Johnson said he was 'learned
enough for a clergyman,' which was an equivocal compliment, for the
clergymen of the period were not, as a rule, learned. Davies was
generally talkative, but at times quite the reverse, and sometimes
uttered pious ejaculations. Between 1764 and 1776 Davies sold a number
of interesting and valuable libraries--those, for example, of William
Shenstone and William Oldys. Davies, like many other contemporary
booksellers, was fond of scribbling, and was the author of 'Memoirs of
Garrick,' and other books.
Probably the most famous bookseller of the Strand is Thomas Payne, who
for over half a century (1740-1794) was selling books in this locality.
'Honest Tom Payne' started business in or about 1740, for in February of
that year he issued a catalogue of 'curious books in divinity, history,
classics, medicine, voyages, natural history,' etc., from the 'Round
Court,[237:B] in the Strand, opposite York Buildings.' About ten years
later (January, 1750) he had removed to the Mews Gate to a shop shaped
like the letter L, which became one of the most famous literary resorts
of the period. Just before leaving Round Court, Tom Payne issued a sort
of clearance catalogue, comprising 10,000 volumes, 'which will be sold
very cheap.' The Mews Gate was near St. Martin's Church, and probably
close to the bottom of the new thoroughfare, Charing Cross Road. It was
at this shop that all the book-collectors of the day most congregated,
for it was to Tom Payne's that the majority of libraries were
consigned--_e.g._, those of Ralph Thoresby, Sir John Barnard, Francis
Grose, Rev. S. Whisson, and many others whose names are now nothing but
names, but who were at the time well-known collectors. Tom Payne's
customers included all the bibliophiles of the period. 'Must I,' asks
Mathias in the 'Pursuits of Literature'--
'Must I, as a wit with learned air,
Like Doctor Dewlap, to Tom Payne's repair,
Meet Cyril Jackson and mild Cracherode,
'Mid literary gods myself a god?
There make folks wonder at th' extent of genius
In the Greek Aldus or the Dutch Frobenius,
And then, to edify their learned souls,
Quote pleasant sayings from _The Shippe of Foles_.'
[Illustration: _Honest Tom Payne._]
Mathias describes Tom Payne as 'that Trypho emeritus,' and as 'one of
the honestest men living, to whom, as a bookseller, learning is under
considerable obligations.' Beloe, in his 'Sexagenarian,' states that at
Tom Payne's and at Peter Elmsley's, in the Strand, 'a wandering scholar
in search of pabulum might be almost certain of meeting Cracherode,
George Steevens, Malone, Wyndham, Lord Stormont, Sir John Hawkins, Lord
Spencer, Porson, Burney, Thomas Grenville, Wakefield, Dean Dampier, King
of Mansfield Street, Towneley, Colonel Stanley,' and others. Savage
professed to have picked up his 'Author to Let' at 'the Mews Gate on my
way from Charing Cross to Hedge Lane.' Tom Payne (who was a native of
Brackley) came into possession of his famous shop at the Mews' Gate
through his marriage with Elizabeth Taylor, whose brother built and for
some time occupied it. About 1776 Tom Payne ('Bookseller Extraordinary
to the Prince Regent, and Bookseller to the University of Oxford') took
his son into partnership, to whom fourteen years later he relinquished
the business, and died in February, 1799, in his eighty-second year.
Thomas Payne the younger (to whom Dibdin dedicated his 'Library
Companion,' 1825) remained here until 1806, when he removed to Pall
Mall; in 1813 he took Henry Foss, who had been his apprentice, into
partnership. The former died in 1831, and was succeeded by his nephew,
John Payne, and Henry Foss, who retired from the trade in 1850, when
their stock came under the hammer at Sotheby's. In the preface to his
'Library Companion,' 1825, Dibdin speaks very highly of the catalogue of
Payne and Foss: 'Since the commencement of this work, Messrs. Payne and
Foss have published a catalogue of 10,051 articles. I have smiled, in
common with many friends, to observe rare and curious volumes selling
for large sums at auctions, when sometimes _better_ copies of them may
be obtained in that incomparable repository in Pall Mall at two-thirds
of the price. Whoever wants a _classical fitting out_ must betake
themselves to this repository.'
The bibliopolic history of the Mews Gate did not terminate with the
younger Tom Payne. When he removed to a more aristocratic quarter, the
shop passed into the occupation of William Sancho, the negro bookseller,
whose father, Ignatius, was born in 1729 on board a ship in the slave
trade soon after it had quitted the coast of Guinea. William Sancho died
before 1817, and was succeeded at the Mews Gate by James Bain, who
afterwards removed to No. 1, Haymarket, where the business is still
carried on, 'in accordance with the best bookselling traditions, by his
younger son, the second James Bain having died early in 1894.' The Mews
was taken down in 1830, and was used in its latter days to shelter
Cross's Menagerie from Exeter 'Change.
One of the oldest firms of Strand booksellers was that started in 1686
by Paul Vaillant, who, at the time of the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, escaped to England. His shop was opposite Southampton Street,
and his chief dealings were in foreign books. He was succeeded by his
sons Paul and Isaac, and then by his grandson, Paul III., the son of
Paul II. The second Paul purchased a quantity of books at Freebairn's
sale for the Earl of Sunderland, and his joy at securing the copy of
Virgil's 'Opera,' printed 'per Zarothum,' 1472, is duly chronicled by
Nichols; he was one of the booksellers employed by the Society for the
Encouragement of Learning. He died in 1802, aged eighty-seven, and as
both of his two sons had elected to follow other occupations, the
business passed into the hands of Peter Elmsley, the great friend and
companion of Gibbon, whose 'Decline and Fall,' however, he did not see
his way to publish; he was a great linguist, and possessed 'an amount of
general knowledge that fitted him for conversation and correspondence
upon a familiar and equal footing with the most illustrious and
accomplished of his day.' At the end of the last century he resigned
the business to his shopman, David Bremner, 'whose anxiety for acquiring
wealth rendered him wholly careless of indulging himself in the ordinary
comforts of life, and hurried him prematurely to the grave.' He was
succeeded by James Payne (the youngest son of the famous Tom) and J.
Mackinlay, both of whom also came to premature ends, the former through
being long confined as a prisoner in France.
Among the most famous of the Strand booksellers of the earlier part of
the present century were Rivington and Cochran, of No. 148 (near
Somerset House), and Thomas Thorpe, of 38, Bedford Street. With these
two firms it really seemed a question as to which could issue the most
bulky catalogues. The earliest example which we have seen of the former
is dated 1825; it extends to over 800 pages, and comprises nearly 18,000
items in various languages and in every department of literature. Thomas
Thorpe was undoubtedly the giant bibliopole of the period. If anything
striking or original occurred in the bookselling world, it was generally
Thorpe who did it. Dibdin describes him as 'indeed a man of might.' His
catalogues, continues the same writer, 'are of never-ceasing production,
thronged with the treasures which he has gallantly borne off, at the
point of his lance, in many a hard day's fight, in the Pall Mall and
Waterloo Place arenas. But these conquests are no sooner obtained than
the public receives an account of them, and during the last year only
his catalogues, in three parts, now before me, comprise no fewer than
179,059 articles. What a scale of buying and selling does this fact
alone evince! But in this present year two parts have already appeared,
containing upwards of 12,000 articles. Nor is this all. On September 24,
1823, there appeared the most marvellous phenomenon ever witnessed in
the annals of bibliopolism.[241:A] The _Times_ had four of the five
columns of its last page occupied by an advertisement of Mr. Thorpe,
containing the third part of his catalogue for that year. On a moderate
computation, this advertisement comprised 1,120 lines. The effect was
most extraordinary. Many wondered, and some remonstrated; but Mr. Thorpe
was master of his own mint, and he never mentions the circumstance but
with perfect confidence, and even gaiety of heart, at its success.'
Thorpe issued catalogues from 1829 to 1851, and during one year alone,
1843, his lists comprised over 16,000 lots. In 1836 he removed from
Bedford Street to 178, Piccadilly. Thorpe was the first _merchant_ in
autographs, and Sir Thomas Phillipps was one of the first _collectors_
who flourished in the iniquity of the pursuit, and it was the latter who
on one occasion purchased the entire contents of one of Thorpe's
autograph catalogues.
Another distinguished bibliopole of this locality, or, more correctly,
of Great Newport Street, was Thomas Rodd, who died in April, 1849, in
his fifty-third year. The business was really started by his father and
namesake, who was a man of considerable literary ability, and who
abandoned his intention of entering the Church when he became possessed
of a secret for making imitation diamonds, rubies, garnets, etc. In 1809
he added bookselling to that of manufacturing sham stones. After getting
into trouble with the Excise on account of the latter accomplishment, he
devoted himself entirely to the book-trade. The elder Rodd died in 1822,
and his son, the more famous bibliopole, succeeded to the business,
which he developed in an extraordinary manner within a few years. His
memory and knowledge of books were almost limitless, and, like Thomas
Thorpe, most of his schemes were on a scale to create a sensation.
Rodd's catalogues are of great bibliographical value. In spite of his
extensive connections, his stock at the time of his death was enormous.
It was sold, in ten different instalments, at Sotheby's, between
November, 1849, and November, 1850.
[Illustration: _Henry G. Bohn, Bookseller._]
[Illustration: _John H. Bohn._]
Henry G. Bohn may be regarded as the connecting link between the old and
the new school of booksellers. He was born in London on January 4, 1796,
and died in August, 1884. His father was a bookbinder of Frith Street,
Soho, but when he removed to Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, he added
(in 1814) a business in second-hand books. Between this year and 1830,
H. G. Bohn paid repeated visits to the Continent as his father's buyer.
In 1831 he married a daughter of Mr. Simpkin, of Simpkin, Marshall and
Co. He started in business for himself, and rapidly built up an
extensive trade, far exceeding any of his rivals. At about the same time
his brother James also started on his own account, at 12, King William
Street, Charing Cross, whilst the third brother, John Hutter Bohn, who
has been for nearly forty years the cataloguer at Sotheby's and is still
living, attended to the original business. Bohn's famous 'Guinea
Catalogue' was deservedly regarded as a great triumph in its way,
although it has been far surpassed by the splendid catalogues of his
whilom apprentice, B. Quaritch. Bohn's fame now rests almost exclusively
in his publishing ventures, which proved a veritable gold-mine to the
originator, and are still highly lucrative investments in the hands of
Messrs. George Bell and Sons. He 'edited' an edition of Lowndes'
'Bibliographer's Manual,' and his name occurs on the title-pages of a
great many books dealing with an extensive variety of subjects. It is
scarcely necessary to say that Bohn has very little claim to be regarded
either as an editor or as an author, unless the cash purchase of the
product of other men's brain and study conferred either of these titles
upon him. He was, however, a remarkable person, with a very wide
knowledge of books. While quite a young man he catalogued the books of
Dr. Parr. The growing extent of his publishing business killed the
second-hand trade, so far as he was concerned, and his stock was
disposed of at Sotheby's in the years 1868, 1870, and 1872, occupying
fifty days in selling, and realizing a total of over £13,300. Both Henry
G. Bohn and his brother James dealt largely in remainders, and of this
class of merchandise each issued catalogues early in the year 1840 (and
at other times), and the difference in the extent of the trade done by
the two brothers may be indicated by the fact that the catalogue of the
former extends to 132 pages, whilst that of the latter is only 16 pages.
In this, as in everything else which he undertook, H. G. Bohn was first
and his rivals nowhere. One of Bohn's rivals in the 'forties' was Joseph
Lilly, who once undertook to purchase everything important in the book
line which was offered, but he soon gave up the idea. His shop was for
some time at 19, King Street, Covent Garden, and his catalogues always
contained a large number of select books. He had served a short time at
Lackington's, and was distinguished for the zeal with which he purchased
First Folio Shakespeares. Lilly died in 1870, and his vast stock came
under the hammer at Sotheby's in six batches, 1871-73.
[Illustration: _Mr. F. S. Ellis._]