Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/138

106 io6 THE LONGMAN FAMIL K above 18,000 copies." By 1856, the sale of these two volumes had reached nearly 40,000 copies, and in the United States 125,000 copies were sold in five years. For the privilege of publication for ten years, it is said that Mr. Longman allowed the author 600 per annum ; the copyright remaining in Macaulay's pos- session. This success, however, was nothing to that achieved by the third and fourth volumes ; and the day of their publication, i/th Dec., 1855, will be long remembered in the annals of Paternoster Row. It was presumed that 25,000 copies would be quite sufficient to meet the first public demand ; but this enormous pile of books, weighing fifty-six tons, was exhausted the first day, and eleven thousand applicants were still unsatis- fied. In New York one house sold 73,000 volumes (three different styles and prices) in ten days, and 25,000 more were immediately issued in Philadel- phia 10,000 were stereotyped, printed, and in the hands of the publishers within fifty working hours. The aggregate sale in England and America, within four weeks of publication, is said to have exceeded 150,000 copies. Macaulay is also stated to have re- ceived ; 1 6,000 from Mr. Longman for the copyright of the third and fourth volumes.* Upon the death of Mr. Macney Napier, the editor- ship of the Rcviciv was transferred to Mr. Empson, Jeffrey's son-in-law ; while he in turn was succeeded by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who finally gave place to Mr. H. Reeve. In the way of cheap literature the "Travellers' Dictionary of English Literature, vol. ii., from which many of the above facts have been drawn,
 * For a further account of these extraordinary sales, see Allibone's