Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/314

274 CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, AND CASSELL. of our largest book manufacturing firms to the extent of, it is said, forty-two thousand pounds. The main interest of his life must, however, be considered to lie in the earnestness with which he laboured in causes he felt worthy of all labour, rather than in his career as a publisher, for the books he issued were little other than reprints of books whose popularity had been previously tested. At the time of Cassell's death it is said that upwards of 500 men were employed at the works ; that 855,000 sheets were printed off weekly, requiring a consumption of 1310 reams of paper. Latterly Messrs. Fetter and Galpin have launched out into a vastly superior style of book-publishing, and in placing the works of Gustave Dore before the English public have taken very high rank as Fine Art publishers. In other ways, too, they have shown a disposition to combine the production of valuable original works with the cheaper serials with which the name of their firm has been so long and successfully associated. It is impossible to close this chapter without refer- ring to the productions of Mr. Bohn. Our limited space and the value of his publications all the more valuable, doubtless, from being mainly repro- ductions of standard works alone prevent us from according him a separate chapter. Mr. Henry George Bohn, born in the year 1796, was the son of a London bookseller, who came, however, of a German family. At an early age he entered into his father's business, but throughout life, engrossed as deeply as any of his compeers in bookselling and publishing transactions, he ever found time and op- portunity for literary labour, and, in all, twelve im-