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��NOTES BY THE WAY.

��Joseph Whitafc

��er.

��His business capacity.

��Originates

The Penny

Post.

��by second-hand booksellers at 3Z. The subscribers to his library, which he keeps select, are increasing year by year. He refused any book that might offend against good morals, and certainly exercised a wholesome influence on our literature. Publishers when ready with a new work were anxious as to the number Mudie would take. I remember his telling my father that a work such as Macaulay's ' England ' or Livingstone's ' Travels ' meant to him a thousand fresh subscribers. He was much influenced by the reviews in The Athenceum, and each week would call for his copy, take it with him to Simpson's, and read it while eating his dinner of fish. Messrs. Kent & Co. (late D. Bogue) are advertising their foreign sovereigns ; while the ' Women of the Time ' numbered but 75. I think I am right in saying that, with the exception of Mr. Holman Hunt, not one hi these two lists is now living, and many of the names have dropped out of memory, showing how transient contemporary fame may be. The original publisher of ' Men of the Time ' was David Bogue, the much-respected publisher in Fleet Street. His windows at the side faced the Punch office in the wide space leading to St. Bride's Church. Mr. John Chapman is advertising a new work by Prof. Newman on Theism ; and Griffith & Farran from St. Paul's Churchyard, under National Education, Darnell's Copy-Books, three numbers of these being devoted to ladies' angular writing.
 * Men of the Time.' In 1858 these numbered only 710, including

Such were the literary surroundings when The Bookseller was founded by Joseph Whitaker in January, 1858. From its first number it has been a success. Mr. George Herbert Whitaker, who is its present editor (his brother Cuthbert Wilfrid taking under his special care the world-famed ' Whitaker's Almanack '), has cele- brated the Jubilee of The Bookseller by giving in the number for January 24th, 1908, a history of its origin and a short record of publishing firms during the fifty years.

In a brief biographical account of his father Mr. Whitaker states that he was born on the 4th of May, 1820. At fourteen he was apprenticed to the bookbinding firm of Barritt & Co., and showed such a special capacity for business that he was soon placed as an assistant in their Bible establishment in Fleet Street. At the end of his apprenticeship he went to Oxford to John Henry Parker, who was so impressed by his capabilities that he entrusted him with the formation and entire management of his London house at 377, Strand, where Whitaker originated the first penny Church magazine, The Penny Post. On leaving Parker's he started busi- ness in Pall Mall as a religious publisher and bookseller, removing in 1855 to 310, Strand, where, with the assistance of Thomas Delf, he issued The Artist. The business was not a success, and a composition with creditors became inevitable. The Court cleared

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