Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/305

CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, AND CASSELL* 265 Analytical Accounts of Great Writers, English and Foreign ... 13 Biography 33 General History 5 English History 26 Geography, Travel, and Topography 33 Natural History 17 Fine Arts and Antiquities 8 Arts and Sciences, Political Philosophy, &c 14 Natural Theology and Philosophy 15 General Literature 16 Original Fiction 6 186 After this noble endeavour in a good cause, it is literally heartrending to read Mr. Knight's candid confession that not twenty volumes of the series achieved a circulation of 10,000 copies. As soon as the Poor Law Board was established, Mr. Knight became officially connected with it as an authorized publisher, and from that time he almost entirely gave up general publishing, and his works were entrusted to the care of other firms. The copyright of the " Encyclopaedia " remained in his possession, and was turned to good account in the " National Encyclopaedia," and later on in the " English Encyclopaedia," in which, however, nothing was reprinted without thorough revision, many of the articles being entirely new. Several of Mr. Knight's productions, such as " The Land we Live in," commenced in 1847, turned out, in the hands of the "copy publisher," to be perfect mines of wealth. In 1854 appeared the "Popular History of Eng- land;" it was completed in 1862. In 1851 we find Mr. Knight going about as joint manager with Mr, Payne Collier, of that band of illustrious amateur actors who have become so famous. 17