The Lucile Project: Sources for Information Used in Head Notes
for Publisher's Pages
The following notes include full bibliographic descriptions of items cited in abbreviated form in the headnotes to publisher's files and elsewhere in this website. Also noted are a selection of articles and books specifically useful for understanding the publishing, manufacturing, trade practices, and public policies relevant to the publishing history of Lucile (and similar books), 1860-1938.
(Addison). Addison, Catherine Anne. "The Victorian Verse Novel as Bestseller: Owen Meredith's Lucile". Victorican Literature and Culture (2017) 45:257-274. A faculty member at the University of Zululand, South Africa, Addison's article is the first to argue that Lytton's work has merit not recognized by critics contemporaneously with publication or later and that his fluency in both English and French gives his poetry more subtlety than has previously been recognized.
(Beswick, Jay W.). The Work of Frederick Leypoldt, bibliographer and publisher (New York: R.R. Bowker, 1942. An early and brief, but useful, biography of Leypoldt. Online at HathiTrust.
(Brief Studies) Brief Studies of General Book Publishing Firms of the United States Written by Students in Library 102a, Library Seminar 1930-1931, under the supervision of the assistant professor Anne M. Boyd. (Urbana: University of Illinois Library School, 1931).
(Comparato). Comparato, Frank E. Books for the Millions: A History of the Men Whose Methods and Machines Packaged the Printed Word. (Harrisburg, PA: The Stackpole Company: 1971). Much of the second section, "The Industrialization of the American Bindery (pages 99-259), documents in extenso the mechanization of nearly all bindery operations after 1850, particularly the many inventions between 1880 and 1900. A well-illustrated, accessible, durable, classic.
(DLB 49) Peter Dzwonkoski, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 49: American Literary Publishing Houses, 1638-1899 (Detroit: Gale Research Co., c1986. Volume 1: A-M; Volume 2: N-Z. I have compiled an index of publishers noticed in these two volumes.
(Getting Out the Books) Hackenberg, Michael, editor. Getting Out the Books (Washington: Center for the Book, The Library of Congress, 1987). For this Project, Michael Winship's "Getting the Books Out: Trade Sales, Parcel Sales, and Book Fairs in Nineteenth-Century Book Publishing" (pages 4-25) and Madeleine Stern's "Dissemination of Popular Books in the Midwest and Far West during the Nineteenth Century" (pages 76-97) are useful.
(Harlan) Harlan, Aurelia Brooks, 1899- . Owen Meredith; a Critical Biography of Robert, First Earl of Lytton. New York: Columbia University Press, 1946. A revision of her dissertation, Harlan's book is more concerned with analysis of Lytton's writing (including a chapter on Lucile) than with his life per se. It was the first, and remains one of very few, full length considerations of Lytton's life and work. See reviews.
(Harlan Letters). Harlan, Aurelia Brooks, Mrs., ed.; J. Lee Harlan 1906- joint ed. Letters from Owen Meredith (Robert, First Earl of Lytton) to Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Waco, TX: Baylor University, 1937. Published also as Baylor bulletin, v. 39, no. 3-4, Waco Tex., 1936. 2p.-iii-xxiii, 246 p.
(Hruschka) Hruschka, John. How Books Came to America: The Rise of the American Book Trade. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012. Hruschka begins with Gutenberg and Columbus, but nearly half his book (pages 96-182) is given over to Frederick Leypoldt (1835-1884) and the "order" he imposed on the U.S. book trade with Publishers' Weekly (1871+), Publishers' Trade List Annual (1873+), and his many other trade-oriented publications. The book is a fresh, stimulating, and compact look at U.S. publishing history.
(Kanigal) Kanigel, Robert. Faux Real: Genuine Leather and 200 Years of Inspired Fakes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Primarily concerned with imitation leaters since 1925 (particularly pyrolixin (Fabrikoid), vinyl, Corfam, and Ultrasuede), Chapter 2 has useful comments on 19th century imitation leathers, including those used in bookbindings. Other chapters do give accessible summary accounts of tanning and the physical and chemical processes of manufacturing imitation leathers.
(Kilgour) Kilgour, Raymond L. Estes & Lauriat A History 1872-1898 With a Brief Account of Dana Estes and Company 1898-1914, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1957. A somewhat labored but thorough review of this important Boston publisher, notable in three respects:(1) it focused almost entirely on illustrated books, both books for children and sets of authors (and selected subjects, e.g. classic authors, travel) for adults; (2) it developed one of the most extensive and profitable trade in subscription books, and (3) in defending its publication of an annual for children, Chatterbox, against competitors for nearly ten years, it played a key role in establishing the copyright law of 1892. In regard to (2), pages 160-165 are particularly useful, while (3) is detailed in Chapter Seven, pages 180-211.
(Krupp-Rosner) Andrea Krupp and Jennifer Woods Rosner, "Pre-Ornamented Bookcloth on Nineteenth-Century Cloth Case Bindings." The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 94:2 (2000), p1976-196. Describes cloth embossed from the board side in the 1835-1850 period, a technique that appears to have been resurrected with, e.g., Crowell padded cloth bindings in the 1890s.This essay is extended in Krupp's Bookcloth in England and America, 1823-1850 (New Castle and London: Oak Knoll and the British Library, 2008).
(Kurian) Kurian, George Thomas. The Directory of American Book Publishing: From Founding Fathers to Today's Conglomerates (New York: Simon & Schuster,1975).
(Madison) Madison, Charles A. Book Publishing in America (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1966). A general overview of American publishing from Colonial beginnings to the mid-1960s. Only occasional snippets on reprint publishers 1860-1920.
(Paas) Paas, John Roger. “‘Under Omar’s subtle spell’: American Reprint Publishers and the Omar Craze.” Pages 127-146 in Adrian Poole, Chrstine Van Ruymbeke, William H. Martin and Sandra Mason, FitzGerald’s Ruyáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Popularity and Neglect (London: Anthem Press, 2011). Collection of essays resulting from a 2009 conference. Paas’s contribution is based on his collection of some 3000 editions of the Ruyáiyát plus a mass of Omar ephemera and objects. As was with the case with Lucile, the first American edition was published by James Osgood (1877), with Houghton Mifflin issuing the first illustrated edition (by Elihu Vedder) in 1884.
(Parfait) Parfait, Claire. Publishing History of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', 1852-2002 (Abingdon: Ashgate, 2008). Chapter 7 (pages 153-175) discusses the many "memorial," "scholarly," and "popular" editions in the period 1893-1930 -- the latter published by many of the reprint publishers who also issued Luciles. Pages 160-167 are a particularly useful summary of marketing strategies. Parfait's list of the book's publishers (Appendix 2, pages 215-224) is, I suspect, massively incomplete but interesting.
(PTLA) The Publishers' Trade List Annual (New York: F. Leypoldt, etc.) Vol. 3-4 (1874) - 2001. Vol. 1-2 (1873), same information produced in the same format as later volumes, was issued under the title "Uniform Trade List Annual"; see PTLA Creation for explantion. An index was issued for the year 1902, with supplementary indexes for 1903 and 1904 (1904 includes 1903 material). From 1948-2001 PTLA was the basis of Books in Print (an independent title moved online 2001 as Bowker's Global Books in Print); PTLA was discontinued in 2001.
PTLA was preceded by The Trade Circular and Literary Bulletin, vols 1 & 2 (September 1869) and Trade Circular and Publishers' Bulletin, vols. 3-5 (ending December 1871), monthly lists of books published during the previous year which were cumulated, indexed, and published as The Annual American Catalogue for 1869, (1870), … for 1870 (1871), and … for 1871 (1872). This effort, which was financially unsustainable. See also: (Beswick) Beswick, Jay W. The Work of Frederick Leypoldt, Bibliographer and Publisher (New York: R.R. Bowker Co., 1942), a thesis of 102 small pages, and John Hruschka's How Books Came to America: The Rise of the American Book Trade, cited above.
For an index to PTLA 1873-1947 that I have compiled, click the PTLA tab in the page header above. For general comments on the Meckler Microfiche Edition, see history; an index for volume one (1903-1963) compiled by Anthony Abbott (ISBN 0-930466-25-X; volume two ISBN 0-88736-015-7) links each catalog in a volume to the microfiche #, column, and row. For location of original and digital copies, see: volumes held by selected libraries .
(PW) Publisher's Weekly (New York: R.R. Bowker Company). Vol. 1 (Jan. 18, 1872) -. Official organ of the Publishers' Board of Trade, 1872-76; of the Book Trade Association of Philadelphia, 1872-74; of the American Book Trade Union (called later American Book Trade Association) 1874-76. Vols 1-2 have title: The Publishers' weekly trade circular. (For changes in subtitle of the Publishers' Weekly see A. Growoll, Book-trade bibliography in the U. S. in the XIXth century, New York, 1898, p. XXIX; no. 37-37b). Since 1888 the Christmas number issued in November (and separately paged) has had title: The Christmas book shelf. Vols. 1-14 were published by F. Leypoldt.
The history of PW's precursors is complex, beginning with Norton’s Literary Advertiser in 1851. See PW's foundation for a summary of this history and a discussion of digital holdings of the several titles available via HathiTrust.
Preceded by The Trade Circular and Literary Bulletin, vols 1 & 2 (September 1869) and Trade Circular and Publishers' Bulletin, vols. 3-5 (ending December 1871), monthly lists of books published during the previous year which were cumulated, indexed, and published as The Annual American Catalogue for 1869, (1870), … for 1870 (1871), and … for 1871 (1872). This effort, which was financially unsustainable, is more properly a precursor to The Publishers’ Trade List Annual than to Publishers' Weekly proper. For a full bibliography see Growoll, A. Book-trade bibliography in the United States in the XIXth century: to which is added A catalogue of all the books printed in the United States, with the prices, and place where published, annexed. Published by the booksellers in Boston, January, 1804. New York: Printed for the Dibdin Club, 1898 (Available online). This small book also contains still useful biographies of Orville A. Roorbach, Charles B. Norton, Charles Rudolph Rode, Obadiah Rich, Henry Stevens, Nicholas Trubner, James Kelly, Joseph Sabin, and Frederick Leypolt.
(The Reference Catalogue of Current Literature (London).). Explicitly copied on PTLA and published by W. Whitaker & Sons,The Reference Catalogue ... began in 1874, with second issue in 1875, third in 1877, fourth 1880, and thereafter generally every four years until 1961, with suspensions during both WWI and WWII. In 1965-1987 it was retitled British Books in Print, from 1988 to 2003 again retitled Whitaker's Books in Print, and since then has been incorporated in an online product, Bowker's British Books in Print. Many volumes are available in digital editions on HathiTrust, with those from 1874 through 1924 open for full view. From its beginning, RCCL included catalogs from U.S. publishers with London offices. While this has not yet been confirmed, it is likely that the submitted catalogs concentrated on titles the U.S. publisher expected or hoped would attract British buyers. See Lists of contributors & advertisers 1874-1924.
Unlike PTLA, and the major reason for the four-year spacing, each issue through 1932 was indexed by author, title and subjects, the index volume then followed by three to nine (or more) volumes containing catalogues submitted by publishers, arranged in alphabetical order by name of firm. Compilation in 1932 lead to re-evaluation and intense discussion within the trade, then re-orientation of the plan: collecting and distributing catalogues were discontinued, as was subject indexing. As a direct result, the number of contributing publishers jumped from 217 in 1932 to 652 in 1936. Quite obviously the trade valued appearance in the index far more greatly than access to full catalogs. The demise of subjects meant that the 1936 issue consisted of just two thick volumes, one an index of authors, the other of titles. For the period 1874-1932, however, the RCCL remains a vast repository of British publishers' catalogs.
(Raymond) Raymond, E. Neill. Victorian Viceroy: The Life and Times of Robert, the First Earl of Lytton (London and New York: Regency Press, 1980). 312p plus notes, 8p b&w illustrations. Biography of Lytton much more concerned with his diplomatic career than with his writing. An epilogue describes Lytton's descendents to 1980.
(Schurman) Schurman, Lydia Cushman, "The Effect of Nineteenth-Century 'Libraries' on the American Book Trade." In Schurman, Lydia Cusman and Deidre Johnson, Scorned Literature: Essays on the History and Criticism of Popular Mass-Produced Fiction in America (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), pp. 97-121. Description of the reprint industry which focuses exclusively on reprint publications issued in paper wrappers (e.g., those by the Munros, Lovell, and others) before 1891; this focus limits the article's usefulness in relation to the larger reprint industry more characteristic of the late nineteenth-century. Also, in line with the title of this collection, Schurman writes from the perspective of those doing the “scorning” without much, if any, sympathy for the scorned thus cast a villains. In doing so she relies heavily on Shove’s facts and opinions, themselves biased. Essays in the volume by others concern Mickey Spillaine, romance novels, Westerns, boy's books, comics, and other genres.
(Sheehan) Sheehan, Donald. This Was Publishing: a Chronicle of the Book Trade in the Gilded Age (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1952). Detailed discussion of "trade courtesy" pages 61-71; trade, parcel, and remainder sales in Chapter 7: "The Machinery of Wholesale Distribution."
(Shove) Shove, Raymond Howard. Cheap Book Production in The United States, 1870 To 1891 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Library, 1937). M.A. Thesis. Concerned with a relatively few publishers and "libraries," (e.g., The Lakeside Library, The Seaside Library, Franklin Square Library, Lovell's Library; T.B. Peterson, George Munro, Hurst, Lovell, Worthington, etc.) in the period leading to the American copyright law of 1891. As a result of this focus on the early period of mass market reprinting, Shove tends to disparage the publishers he discusses, and he does not discuss the more mainstream reprint phenomenon of 1890-1910 as represented by firms such as Henry Altemus, H.M. Caldwell, and T.Y. Crowell. Though not always correct in facts, his early study remains a useful source of detail for the 1870-1890 period.
(Stauffer). Stauffer, Andrew M. Book Traces: Nineteenth-Century Readers and the Future of the Library. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Book Traces (https://booktraces-public.lib.virginia.edu/) is a growing database of 19th Century books of poetry in research collections with identified contemporary annotations or inserted material that reflect a reader's use of/reaction to the work. One of the examples discussed is a Lucile found in the University of Virginia library. Chapters 1 and 5 discuss the ways in which libraries are currently discarding these books or sending them to remote storage facilities in which it is difficult to access or examine them.
(Stern) Stern, Madeleine B., editor. Publishers for Mass Entertainment in Nineteenth Century America (Boston: G.K. Hall, c1980).
(Stokes) Stokes, Frederick A. "A Publisher's Random Notes, 1880-1935." The Bowker Lectures on Book Publishing. First Series. New York: the Typophiles, 1943. A concise but effective summary of the publishing world during the main period of Lucile's publication. The version appearing here has been edited to focus Stokes' remarks on the 1880-1915 period and omits his observations on the 1920s and 1930s.
(Tebbel) Tebbel, John William. A History of Book Publishing in the United States (New York: R.R.. Bowker Co., [1972]-1981). 4 volumes. Most citations are to volume 2: The Expansion of an Industry, 1865-1919. An exhaustive history of American publishing.
(Tebbel BC) Tebbel, John William. Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of Book Publishing in America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. The "biographical and anecdotal material" from A History of Book Publishing ... brought together and retold "against background of a necessarily briefer overall view of the industry's progress from colonial days to the present ... the focus is now mainly trade publishing."
(Weber) Weber, Carl J. The Rise and Fall of James Ripley Osgood. (Waterville, ME: Colby College, 1959). A fulsome and competent biography of Osgood, somewhat informal, and regrettably lacking full citations of sources, with few footnotes and no bibliography, making it generally difficult, and often impossible, to backtrack Weber's documentation. It remains, however, the only reasonably complete review of the career of one of the most important 19th century American publishers.
[Books in Series].
----.Altick, Richard D. "From Aldine to Everyman: Cheap Reprint Series of the English Classics, 1830-1906." Studies in Bibliography 11 (1958), p3-24. A competent, compact survey of about 100 inexpensive British series that reprinted classic British literature up to Wordsworth, Shelley, and Lamb, excluding series designed for school use and series started but discontinued after a handful of issues. British publishers shared some ambitions with similar American publishers but operated in an environment sufficiently different that the two experiences complement more than overlap each other. Useful background.
----. Barry, Rebecca Rego. "The Neo-Classics: (Re)Publishing the "Great Books" in the United States in the 1990s." Book History 6 (2003), p.251-275. Concerned primarily with Signet Classics, Bantam Classics, Harbrace Great Books, the Library of America, and other series of the 1990s but includes useful comment on earlier series and publishers' motivations to use them.
----. Bonnell, Thomas F. "Bookselling and Canon-Making: The Trade Rivalry over the English Poets, 1776-1783." Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature 19 (1989), p53-69. Describes the earliest period of series publication.
----. Cheney, O.H. Economic Survey of the Book Industry 1930-1931 (National Association of Book Publishers, 1931) . The chapter on "Book, Buyer, and Critic" has the following passage; note particularly the final sentence.
"The classics are favorite themes for literary tears -- "they are not read as much as they used to be" in the good old days. That the classics can achieve big sales in spite of the much-bemoaned trend away from them is amply proved by the reprints skilfully promoted and efficiently merchandised.
"A reading habits study of the Survey revealed that of actual reading over a given period, only three per cent was of the "standard authors" or the "world's masterpieces." This probably represents a fair figure for adults who do considerable reading on vocational or special subjects -- for the general population the reading of the classics probably does not represent more than five per cent of the total. This is surprisingly low, considering the cheapness of the classics and the continuous publicity they have received. It is surprisingly high considering the ordeal these books have to pass in schools.
"The plaint that the good books of the past are not available in good editions is unfounded. In fact, in some titles, there is a decided over-abundance of editions. Every popular illustrator and every new artistic discoverer "must do" a new edition of this classic or that -- and the result adds to the troubles of the bookseller -- particularly during the Christmas rush.
"The competition between editions of the best books of all time is becoming keen and unnecessarily so. The deliberate duplication of lists in low-priced editions is not a service to the public but a destructive burden on the bookseller."
----. Groves, Jeffrey D."Judging Literary Books by Their Covers: House Styles, Ticknor and Fields, and Literary Promotion." In Moylan, Michelle, and Lane Stiles. Reading Books: Esays on the Material Text and Literature in America. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996), p75-100. Review of mid-19th century American binding styles for literature with particular focus on series and Ticknor and Fields. Footnotes highly useful for accessing related scholarly literature.
----. Spiers, John. The Culture of the Publisher's Series. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Volume 1: Authors, Publishers and the Shaping of Taste. Volume 2: Nationalisms and the National Canon. Collection of papers presented at an Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, London College conference. Spiers provides long introductions and bibliographies for both volumes. An exhaustive summary of previous studies.
----. Winship, Michael."The Rise of a National Book Trade System in the United States." In Kaestle, Carl F. and Janice A. Radway, A History of the Book in America, volume 4 (1990): "Print in Motion: The Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States, 1880-1940," Chapter 4, p56-77. Useful review of growth of bookshops and some other distribution mechanisms.
----. Edward T. LeBlanc Memorial Dime Novel Bibliography "aims to create a comprehensive online database of dime novels, story papers, reprint libraries and related materials.... LeBlanc documented nearly every American dime novel series outside of those recorded by [Albert] Johannsen in his 3-volume, The House of Beadle and Adams and its Nickel and Dime Novels, Beadle & Adams Online. LeBlanc's] unpublished bibliographic listings are the source of the majority of the series listings in this database."
----. A Series of Series, developed by John Krygier to provide context for his growing collection of several hundred volumes issued in reprint series between 1890 and 1980 in their original dustjackets (the fold-in and rear panels of which often carry a list of other titles issued in the same series). The site draws in and references considerable material about dust jacket production, use, and history.
----. Publisher's Bindings Online, 1815-1930 is a website established in 2003 jointly by the University of Alabama and the University of Wisconsin with grant funding from IMLS. When grant funds were exhausted around 2007, the site was maintained by Alabama but not further developed. It continues, however, to be a useful resource for trade bindings and designers working with decorated cloth in the 19th and early 20th centuries. An "attached" resource, Trade Bindings Research Newsletter 1991-1994, is the archive of a small periodical, with scans of its 15 issues, published by two librarians at California State Univerisity Fullerton. Interest in the design work of Margaret Amstrong is prominent but there also is useful information about several other designers, including bibliographies of work they are known to have done. Both resources are worth exploring.
----. American Trade Bindings and Beyond is a blog formated collection of detailed research done by two librarians at the University of North Carolina Greensboro before adding catalog data to UNCG's collection of several thousand trade bindings. It includes useful research tools, a list supplemented by extensive references in the essays.
[Stereo- and electrotyping]
----. Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography (New Castle: Oak Knoll Press, 1995), p201-205.
----. Harter, Eugene. Boilerplating America: The Hidden Newspaper (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991). Primarily concerned with the development of the Associated Press and similar cooperative journalistic organizations but contains an account of stereoplating in newspaper production.
----. Winship, Michael. "Printing with Plates in the Nineteenth Century United States." Printing History, The Journal of the American Printing History Association V:2 (number 10; 1983).
----. Winship, Michael. "Manufacturing and Book Production." In Casper, Scott E., et al, A History of the Book in America, volume 3 (2007): "The Industrial Book, 1840-1880," Chapter 1, p40-69. Careful review of all aspects of typical practices in the composition, printing, binding, stereoplating, and other publishing trades during this period.
-----. Winship. In Jacob Blanck, edited by Michael Winship, Bibliography of American Literature Volume 9 (1991), p209-212) Winship reporting his tracing of the sets of plates made for John Greenleaf Whittier's (1807-1892) Collected Works from 1857, regularly expanded, and by a variety of publishers until 1910. As of this writing (October 2020) this stands as the only completed attempt to identify and trace plate sets with bibliographic precision. The Lucile Poject is at work on this, and it now appears that Lucile was set in type 32 times and plated 31 times (the first, 1860, edition not being plated) while the version used in Meredith's Poetical Works was plated in 1871 (and used twice), then plated an additional 4 times from 1875 to 1887, with several hundred editions and tens of thousands of copies printed from this modest number of settings. These numbers require confirmation but cannot be far off the mark.
----. "Stereotyping and Electroplating" and "Book-Making," from Great Industries of the United States (Hartford, 1873).
----. George Adolf Kubler (1876- ). A History of Stereotyping. (New York, 1927). Kubler, of Arkron, Ohio, founded the Certified Dry Mat Corporation in New York City “for manufacture and sale of dry mats, making only one brand known as “Certified” Dry Mats." While Kubler's intent is to advertise his brand, the historical information he provide is useful as a short review. Digitized on HathiTrust. Kubler produced a second, apparently enlarged, edition in 1941, which I've not seen (but for which there is a WorldCat record with several holding libraries noted).
----. Kubler. The Era of Charles Mahon, Third Earl of Stanhope Stereotyper, 1750-1825. (New York: 1938). Diagrams of equipment used in early attempts at stereo-typing process.
----. Charles Knight, "Compositors' Work and Stereotyping," Penny Magazine (30 November 1833), pages 470-472. Part III of "Commercial History of a Penny Magazine." Detailed description of the stereotype process which includes illustrations of the equipment used and one of a typical foundry.
----. Abraham Rees, "Stereotype," The Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1819), vol. 34 sig Zab [the text of this large work, published and reprinted many times, are unnumbered. The articles are arranged alphabetically, and that for "stereotype" is usually placed in or near volume 34 of the set].
----. Michael Winship. American Literary Publishing in the Mid-nineteenth Century: The Business of Ticknor and Fields (Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing History) 1995 (revised edition 2003), p110. "A final expense of stereotyping was the boxes in which the plates were packed and stored. For works stereotyped in 1856, these boxes held on average just over 51 plates each, though the number of plates per box in individual cases ranged from 34 to 68. Boxes cost only 75 cents each and represented a minor part of the costs of composition and stereotyping -- in 1856 a total of only $148 was spent on them [by Ticknor & Fields] -- nevertheless they had an important function. Stereotype plates repre¬sented a substantial investment for the firm; these boxes played a significant role in protecting the plates and making their continued use possible over many years." [I know of only one such set of surviving boxes, created to hold stereo plates of a book keep in print for many years by the Amana Colony in Kalona, Iowa. Two of the forty-some boxes are shown below. Another box, for electrotypes rather than stereotypes, is in the collections of Rare Book School, The University of Virginia. Electrotypes were thinner and lighter than stereotypes and boxes for them held significantly more plates.
----. "Printing-Engraving-Lithography," Chambers's Information for the People: A Popular Encyclopaedaia (Philadelphia: J.W. Moore, 1853, vol 1, page 799. "In the case of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, a new feature of utility was for the first time developed in the stereotyping art. It was desired to have a separate impression of that work in London, and stereotyping furnished tne means. The types being first set up and imposed, are sent to the foundery, where two sets of stereotype plates are cast from them, one to be retained for use in Edinburgh, and the other to be sent to London, and there subjected to a separate press. The expense of setting up the types anew in London, and the danger of errors being incurred from the want of editorial supervision, are thus avoided. Had not the stereotyping process been available, the arrangement for a separate impression of the Journal might not have been entered upon, and the progress of the work in circulation consequently obstructed to an indefinite extent. Advantage was afterwards taken of the art to the same purpose by the proprietors of other cheap periodicals, particularly the Penny Magazine, of the cuts of which we believe upwards of a dozen sets of stereotype copies are sent to be printed in different parts of the world."
----. Jeffrey Makala. "The Early History of Stereotyping in the United States: Matthew Carey and the Quarto Bible Marketplace." PBSA 109:4 (2015), p416-489. A "Case Study" of the the use of stereoplates from 1812 (soon after introduction of the process in the U.S. to about 1930. While useful, it does not claim to discuss other uses to which stereotyping was or may have been put in this period.
----. Oxford University Press Making a Book is an amusing and informative seventeen and a half minute film made in 1925 on the processes of making a book at the Oxford University Press -- from type casting to shipment. Some processes (e.g., type casting) model those of 1860-1910 while others (e.g,, stereo making) have advanced mechanically (from the electroplating more typical of the earlier period).
[Copyright]
----.Bowker, Richard Rogers (1848-1933). Copyright, its law and its literature; being a summary of the principles and law of copyright, with especial reference to books, by R. R. Bowker; with a bibliography of literary property by Thorvald Solberg. New York : Office of the Publishers' weekly, 1886. Appeared first in the Publishers' weekly, July-Oct., 1885 (the bibliography, 1882-85).
----. Putman, George Haven (1844-1930}; Bowker; Stephen, James Fitzjames (1829-1894) & Simonds, William Edgar (1841-1903). The question of copyright; comprising the text of the copyright laws of the United States, a summary of the copyright laws at present in force in the chief countries of the.world. 1896. Reprinted in 1904 with additions by Brander Matthews (1832-1929) & Frederick Pollock (1845-1937).
----. Bowker, R. R. Copyright, its history and its law : being a summary of the principles and practice of copyright with special reference to the American code of 1909 and the British act of 1911... New York, 1912.
..... Jaszi, Peter and Martha Woodmansee. "Copyright in Transition." In Kaestle, Carl F., and Janice A. Radway, A History of the Book in America, volume 4 (1990): "Print in Motion: The Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States, 1880-1940," Chapter 5, p90-101. Brief review of U.S. copyright law prior to and after Chace Act of 1891. This act provided U.S. and non-U.S. authors with reciprocal rights in each country but also introduced the "Manufacturing Clause" which required books first published in other countries to be manufactured in the U.S. for the author to secure U.S. copyright. The combined agreement of publishers and the typographic trades was essential to secure passage of the Act.
----. McGill, Meredith L. "Copyright." In Casper, Scott E., et al, A History of the Book in America, volume 3 (2007): "The Industrial Book, 1840-1880," Chapter 5, p158-177.
[Courtesty of the Trade]
----. Spoo, Robert. Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Spoo reviews the formal (legal) and informal (e.g., Courtesy of the Trade period) U.S. "public domain" for literary works from 1790 (when the U.S. Constitution defined copyright as a strictly time-limited monopoly and excluded protection for books first published in other countries) down to today (when the Congress and the Supreme Court privileges long term ownerships over accessibility). The primary threads of his magisterial work are the copyright theorizing of Ezra Pound and the treatment of James Joyce's Ulysses as key examples of the environment within which Modernism developed, but Chapter 1 thoroughly reviews law and publishing practice through the Chace act (implemented July 1, 1891) and the Copyright Act of 1909. An Epilogue describes the very different concept of (global) public domain (in law and practice) in place as of 2012.
----. Spoo, Robert. Modernism and the Law (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), surveys the legal regimes—obscenity, copyright, defamation, privacy, and publicity—that shaped modernist literature.
----. Spoo, Robert. "The Lawful Piracy of James Joyce's Poems," in Part 1, Article 2, of Ghosh, Shubha, Forgotten intellectual property lore : creativity, entrepreneurship and intellectual property. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020.
----. Groves, Jeffrey D. "Courtesy of the Trade." In Casper, Scott E., et al, A History of the Book in America, volume 3 (2007): "The Industrial Book, 1840-1880," Chapter 4, p139-147. "Courtesy of the trade" was the convention whereby publishers restrained themselves from issuing editions of non-copyright books that would compete with the edition(s) of the first publisher to issue the title. This was an agreement within the trade that had no support in law.
----. Everton, Michael J. Grand Chorus of Complaint: Authors and the Business Ethics of American Publishing [1800-1865]. Exploration of ethical and practical conflicts between authors and publishers in the pre-Civil War period. Chapters around Evert Duyckinck, Hannah Adams (rights in school books), the debate about copyright reform, Melville, Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall, and an epilogue which draws largely on Gail Hamilton (Mary Abigail Dodge) and her contract experience with James T. Field (of Ticknor & Fields). An insightful look at the business practices (and underlying moral concerns) of the pre-Civil War publishing sector.
[Embossed Leather Bindings].
----.Wolf 2nd, Edwin. From Gothic Windows to Peacocks: American Embossed Leather Bindings 1825-1855. (Philadelphia: The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1990). While Wolf's period ends before the Lucile era, he offers the only clear description of the embossing process that I have found. This is in two parts: pages 9-11 transcribe an account from Tomlinson, Charles. Cyclopedia of Useful Arts & Manufactures, London (1852), I:158; pages 12-14 describe Jennifer Woods' "reverse engineering" dissection of several broken bindings. Wolf also tried to sort out the leathers used, suggesting the most likely material was "skiver", a split of sheepskin, with a split from the skin of hairy sheep perhaps also used; see his pages 14-17.
----.Lucile publishers who offered one or more embossed leather bindings are: American News Company; Bedford, Clarke & Co.; A. L. Burt; H. M. Caldwell; W. B. Conkey; T. Y. Crowell, M. A. Donohue; Henneberry & Co.; Homewood; Hurst & Co.; J. P. Lippincott; John W. Lovell; Nims & Co.; R. Worthington; and E. & J. B. Young. This list excludes a few other publishers that used stamped embossed leathers (alligator, etc.) that had no embossing effect beyond graining the skin (and who thus could use a binding sequence standard for covering and finishing in leather). Crowell and Hurst briefly experimented with embossed cloth and a few other other publishers experimented with embossing faux leathers, typically just by graining them.
The American Catalogue of Books, (original and reprints) published in the United States from Jan., 1861 to Jan. …[1871]., with date of publication, size, price, and publisher's name… Compiled by James Kelly (New York, 1866-77. Reprinted New York: P. Smith, 1941). Volume 1, 1861-1866… with Supplement, containing pamphlets, sermons, and addresses on the Civil War in the United States, 1861-1866; and Appendix, containing names of learned societies and other literary associations, with a list of their publications, 1861-1866. Volume 2, 1866-1871,… with Supplement containing names of learned societies and other literary associations, with a list of their publications, 1866-1871.
The American Catalogue … of Books, in print and for sale (including reprints and importations) 1876-1910, founded by F. Leypoldt; compiled under the editorial direction of R.R. Bowker and A.I. Appleton (New York, 1880 et seq. Reprinted New York: Peter Smith, 1941). 9 volumes in 13. American national trade bibliography. Supplemented by the Annual American catalogue, 1886-1900: Annual Ameican Catalogue, cummulated, 1900-01-1900-03; Annual American catalogue, 1905-06, 1908-10; and, currently, by the Publishers' Weekly. The volumes are: 1, parts 1 & 2: 1876 (compiled from PTLA and published 1880); 2: 1876-1884 (compile from records in Publishers' Weekly (as are the remaining volumes) and published 1885); 3: 1884-1890 (published 1891); 4: 1890-1895 (1896); 5: 1895-1900 (1901); 6: 1900-1905 (1905); 7: 1905-1907 (1908); 8: 1908-1910 (1911).
The United States Catalog, books in print 1902. Entries under author, subject, and title, in one alphabet, with particulars of binding, price, date, and publisher. Edited by Marion E. Potter (Minneapolis: The H.W. Wilson Co., 1903).
The United States Catalog, books in print January 1, 1912. Entries under author, subject, and title, in one alphabet, with particulars of binding, price, date, and publisher. Edited by Marion E. Potter, assisted by Emma L. Teich, Louise Teich, and Bertha Tennehill (Minneapolis: The H.W. Wilson Co., 1912).
The United States Catalog, books in print January 1, 1928. Edited by Mary Burnham, managing editor, Carol Hurd (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1928).
Last revised: 1 October 2023