This is the first-ever book length study of one of the most
important and constantly innovative 19th century book and
periodical publishers. The mysterious and often elusive but
enormously influential Henry Colburn (c.1784 - 16 August 1855) was
the pre-eminent publisher of 'silver-fork' novels, and of many
influential new writers. Colburn's main claim to rehabilitation are
his troop of 'name' authors: Lady Morgan, Disraeli, Bulwer-Lytton,
Captain Marryat, G.P.R James, Mrs. Margaret Oliphant, Mrs.
Catherine Gore, Mrs. Caroline Norton. Frances Trollope, Anthony
Trollope, Richard Cobbold, R. S. Surtees. Many would not have had a
start in the careers they later enjoyed were it not for Colburn.
This is a lively, and important new work on early 19th-century
publishing and the patterns for the century which Colburn set. It
sketches in tantalizing outlines the Regency, early
nineteenth-century and Victorian book trades - and the consequences
of Colburn's impact on those worlds. In addition, the work centres
on Colburn's most celebrated authors. The book - which is well
illustrated - contains the first catalogue of Colburn's
publications.Thus far, literary and Publishing History have drawn a
formidable charge sheet against Henry Colburn. In personal pedigree
he is slandered as a 'guttersnipe', or a 'royal bastard'. In
Disraeli's pungent description he was a publishing 'bawd', engaged
in wholesale literary prostitution. A very bad thing. And yet this
publishing Barabbas can be argued to have been innovative and a
force for constructive change in the rapidly evolving book trade
and---paradoxically---a man of taste. Various rumours circulated
that he was either a bastard of the Duke of York or of Lord
Landsdowne. Date uncertain. He liked to weave illustrious
(typically mendacious) pedigrees for himself as much as for his
dubiously aristocratic purveyors of silver forkery. What,
precisely, did Colburn do that should raise his reputation and make
us see him as a good thing? In the largest sense he demonstrated,
by example and practice, the need for consolidation between
hitherto dismembered arms of the London book world.Beginning his
career at apprentice level in the London West End
circulating-library business he went on, having learned at the
counter what the customer wanted, to become the undisputed market
leader in the publication of three-volume novels and (sub-Murray)
travel books. The three-decker went on to become the
foundation-stone of the 'Leviathan' library system (Mudie's and
Smith's) and created a seventy-year stability in the publishing,
distribution and reception of English fiction. In 1814 Colburn
founded the New Monthly Magazine. In 1817, he set up England's
first serious weekly review, the Literary Gazette. In 1828 he
helped found the Athenaeum (distant parent of today's New
Statesman). His behaviour, as a magazine proprietor and editor at
large was typically outrageous. But the link he forged between
higher journalism and literature was momentous.
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