Macmillan Publishers

“ I have endeavoured to include in this list every distinctive American edition of Wordsworth, published during the poet’s lifetime, and since his death. There are many others, issued with the imprints of honourable publishers; which, upon investigation, were found to be English reprints; to say nothing of those editions made from worn-out plates, and issued by houses of less reputation for honourableness. I was puzzled to account for so many editions of Matthew Arnold’s Selections, some of them bearing the imprint of Harper Brothers, some of Macmillan, and several of Crowell. ”

“ Occasionally, we have to rewrap a text. We also look out for included publishers' trademarks, which we normally prefer to remove (trademarks are NOT subject to copyright expiration: Macmillan (TM) , the publishing house, is still around and trading) , unnecessary or downright odd indentation or centering, stray page numbers, and prefaces or introductions or appendices that may not be in the public domain. If the file has lots of 8-bit characters, we probably need to make a separate 7-bit version, and post both. ”

“ The publishers hope, therefore, that these Globe Editions may prove worthy of acceptance by all classes wherever the English Language is spoken, and by their universal circulation justify their distinctive epithet; while at the same time they spread and nourish a common sympathy with nature's most "finely touched" spirits, and thus help a little to "make the whole world kin."
The Saturday Review says: "The Globe Editions are admirable for their scholarly editing, their typographical excellence, their compendious form, and their cheapness." ”

“ By dead men to their kind;"
and the aim of the publishers of the Globe Library has been to make it possible for the universal kin of English-speaking men to hold communion with the loftiest "spirits of the mighty dead;" to put within the reach of all classes complete and accurate editions, carefully and clearly printed upon the best paper, in a convenient form, at a moderate price, of the works of the master-minds of English Literature, and occasionally of foreign literature in an attractive English dress. ”

“ Price in all countries in the International Postal Union, twenty-five cents a number, one dollar and a quarter a year, postage paid. Foreign agents, Macmillan and Company, Ltd., London.
Manuscripts for publication, books, etc., for review, should be sent to the Editor at Englewood, New Jersey.
Advertisements should be sent to the Publishers at 66 Fifth avenue, New York City.
COPYRIGHTED, 1899, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN.
During the past six years New York and Boston publishers have sold over 70,000 text-books on birds, and the ranks of bird students are constantly growing. ”

“ Daniel Macmillan, founder and head of the distinguished publishing house of Macmillan & Co., was a man of mark, of strong character, rare business talents, a man of ideas, a deeply religious man, who yet got free of the trammels of theology, and a life-long victim of pulmonary disease, which ended his life at the age of forty-four. ”

“ Macmillan have, in their Golden Treasury Series especially, provided editions of standard works, volumes of selected poetry, and original compositions, which entitle this series to be called classical. Nothing can be better than the literary execution, nothing more elegant than the material workmanship."—British Quarterly Review. ”

“ At the end of 1843, with the help of a loan from the Hares, Macmillan was able to take over Newby's business in Trinity Street, Cambridge, 'just opposite the Senate House.' The first Cambridge catalogue of Macmillan & Co. (the 'Co.' being represented by Daniel's brother Alexander, who for the present kept up the shop in Aldersgate Street, though this was relinquished before the end of the year) was issued in March 1844. The conjuncture was a happy one for a man of Macmillan's energies and special rifts. No man who oversold books for a livelihood was more conscious of a vocation. ”

“ The McLellan and Ames Arithmetic and the Murche Science Readers were the first textbooks published for elementary grades. The Macmillan Company first undertook the work of publishing books for that field in the fall of 1897.
W. H. WHEELER & COMPANY.
—This Chicago concern was organized in 1897 by Mr. W. H. Wheeler. In 1898 W. C. Fidler purchased an interest in the Company. Some years later, E. E. Wheeler, son of W. H. Wheeler, was admitted to the firm, as was also John H. Pugh. These four men are still active in the business. ”

“ The writer has also consulted freely — but it is hoped always within the limits of "fair use" — the best law-book writers, especially Drone, Copinger, Colles and Hardy, and MacGillivray, to whom acknowledgment is made in the several chapters. Acknowledgment is also made for the courtesies of Sir Frederick Macmillan, G. Herbert Thring, secretary of the British Society of Authors, and others numerous beyond naming. ”

“ If a reader were asked to single out some one publisher whose name should be guarantee that in buying a book one would get fair equivalent for his money, not in paper and ink alone, but in the stuff of its ideas, he would not often go amiss were he to name Macmillans. ”

“ I daresay it is true that I am inclined to be bitter over the neglect accorded Arthur Machen. Of course the blame for that neglect cannot be fixed or fastened—but it must rest somewhere between the publishers of limited editions and the reprinters of almost unlimited editions, between the alpha and the omega, and the buying and reading public. That covers a lot of territory. One cannot indict the publishing world from top, literally, to bottom, literally. ”

“ THE MACMILLAN STANDARD LIBRARY This series has taken its place as one of the most important popular- priced editions. The ``Library'' includes only those books which have been put to the test of public opinion and have not been found wanting,—books, in other words, which have come to be regarded as standards in the fields of knowledge,—literature, religion, biography, history, politics, art, economics, sports, sociology, and belles lettres. Together they make the most complete and authoritative works on the several subjects. ”

“ Every one must be judged by itself. Five successful books are no absolute guaranty that the sixth will not be worthless.
It seems to me, also, that there is no business in which so few checks exist as in that of publishing. An author, we will say, agrees to receive ten per cent. on the retail price of all copies of his works that are sold, but he has literally nothing but the publisher's word by which to know how many copies are sold. ”

“ Maurice Mapleson is on the library committee, and Maurice Mapleson is fortunately a very sensible man. "The first thing," he says, "is to get books that people will read. Valuable books that they won't read may as well stay on the publishers' shelves as on ours." So as yet we buy only current literature. We rarely purchase any book in more than two volumes. We have a good liberal assortment of modern novels-but they are selected with some care. We sprinkle in a good proportion of popular history and popular science. The consequence is our library is used. ”

“ Devoted to the Highlands and its people, Macmillan was the first chief of the Clan Macmillan Society (1892-9) . He was a diligent student of art, and one of his last literary undertakings was a monograph on George Frederick Watts, R.A. ('Temple Biographies' series) , posthumously published in 1903.
He died at his residence in Edinburgh on 24 May 1903, and was buried in the Dean cemetery. He married on 14 June 1859 Jane, second daughter of William Patison of Williamfield, near Edinburgh. She survived him with one son and five daughters. ”

“ Often when she had seen reviews which quoted extracts she thought she had read the book, just as some people, when they have seen publishers' advertisements, think they have seen reviews, and declare roundly in libraries that a book is out when it lacks a month of publication. ”

“ Thus the Company made every provision to furnish information and even entertainment to the public. Several of these gentlemen afterward wrote accounts for different magazines—Blackwood, Cornhill, and Macmillan's. Their different reports, and especially the volume of Dr. Russell, which combines the accuracy and minuteness of a diary kept from day to day, with brilliant descriptions, set off by illustrations [Pg 269] from drawings of Mr. Dudley, furnish the public as full and complete an account as if there had been a special correspondent for every journal of England and America. ”

“ But what of the young man or woman who has determined to devote himself to the difficult craft of writing, who has beaten out a book to his best ability, and is looking for a publisher? What do you do?
Well, of course, there is nothing to prevent you from bundling up your manuscript and mailing it to various publishers. Experience shows, however, that very few manuscripts submitted “cold” or, in the trade phrase, “over the transom” (obviously the mailman can’t stick a manuscript through the letter slot) , ever see the light of day. ”

“ The early separation of publishing from bookselling is touched upon, and the emergence of publishers as a separate class is outlined. The transitory phenomenon of the man of letters assisting the publisher in an advisory capacity as to the suitability of manuscripts submitted for publication is an interesting chapter in the expansion of the publishing business. Publishing being today largely a commercial affair, the literary reader has in the main been supplanted by the man of business with an aptitude for estimating how many copies of a given book can be sold. ”

“ About this time, the Athenian press seemed to have been seized with an unwonted interest in the book trade, and began to break out in sapient and significant little paragraphs like the following, which I copy from the “Athenian Tribune,” of September 30, 1768:—
“Book Publishing.—There is no class of business so liable to misconstruction and misunderstanding, as that of a publisher of books. It is difficult for an author to understand the business aspects of publishing a book. ”

“ We shall build up, as quickly as may be, a worthy collection of books, and in choosing them we shall follow the same line of editorial policy that is exemplified in McClure's Magazine; we shall publish wholesome, stimulating literature, and sound, interesting knowledge. Not only will our books be good, helpful reading, but they will be well made and sold at reasonable prices. ”

“ Is it the phantom of a distorted imagination that the author has a far larger property in the book than the publisher? Does it not cost him infinitely more than it costs the publisher? And even leaving the infinite, and coming down to finite matters, are not the fields which the publisher reaps so much broader than the author's one little close, that a far smaller share in the gleanings would give the publisher a far more heaping granary. An author, we will say, publishes one book in a year. His profits are a thousand dollars. ”

“ The business of the Press was defined as consisting of the printing of bibles, testaments, and prayer-books; of printing work for the university and colleges; of printing books edited for the Syndics; of book and job printing for the members of the university; of printing works published by the Parker and other learned societies; and of "such Book work, as, subject to the 'Imprimatur' of the Vice-Chancellor, may be offered by Publishers and other connexions of the Press." ”

“ The firm of Hunt, Parry, & Co., now almost as familiar to the public under the new name as under the old colors with which it sailed so long, has been a bulwark and a rallying point for our literature, on which book buyers as well as book writers depended for many years. It has always been active, but never so active as now. ”

“ Where men have leisure, culture and means, the literary output is great, and the most natural thing in the world for those coteries to do would be to publish. They would take the place of the ancient patron; they will do the publishing—just as the Royal Society to-day publishes monographs, or the Early English Text Society or the New Spalding Club issues historical records. Not only that, for I can easily imagine that these societies will have control of presses. ”

“ A still more important volume was given to the world in 1878, from the well-known house of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., entitled, “On the Seaboard.” The critical press were not slow to recognise the sterling merits of this book, which soon passed into a second edition. On this work the reputation of Mrs. Phillips mainly rests. Some of the poems had previously appeared in the pages of Macmillan’s Magazine, All the Year Round, Cassell’s Magazine, and other leading periodicals. They had been widely quoted in the press on both sides of the Atlantic. ”

“ Nevertheless, somewhere about the opening of our own day an iron-bound tradition became erected in the publishing business, at least in the United States, that books of essays would not sell; could not be made to sell even sufficiently to avoid a considerable loss on the investment of manufacture; in fact, were quite impossible as a publishing venture. No matter how much a publisher himself, or his manuscript reader, might enjoy a collection [Pg 17] of essays that chanced to turn up in his shop, his conviction as to its unmarketability as a book was not altered—not even stirred. ”

“ Versions of The Real Thing and Other Tales include: The Real Thing and Other Tales (New York & London: Macmillan & Co., 1893) — American issue of the first edition; published in March 1893 as part of the Macmillan's Dollar Novels Series, in a printing of 1500, divided between the American and English issues; sold for $1. ”

“ But in these days, fortunate indeed, yet full of swift and dubious change—these days when every second man, it would seem, must print a book—these days when all the presses in London are not enough to set before us the tithe of what is committed by ink to paper—in these days, I say, none can be assured that what he now pens shall not by some chance hit of fortune attain the resurrection of print. ”