Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/506

464 PROVINCIAL BOOKSELLERS-. filled an acknowledged void, and, as a trade journal, has never been surpassed. From the interest of the notes and trade gossip contained in its pages, as well as from the more solid information in its lists of works and announcements, it has secured a wide popularity here and abroad, and has been the precursor of similar journals in America and elsewhere. Among other important Manchester publishers were B. & W. Dean, who introduced stereotyping into the cjty, and issued a large series of popular and useful books. From some cause or another, they failed, and their stereos came into the possession of Samuel Johnson, the father of the Liverpool bookseller. Johnson now became a publisher on a very extensive scale, and is said to have been the originator of the royal 32mo. literature, which is now chiefly identified with Halifax. In our own times, Manchester bookselling has been principally represented by the brothers Abel and John Hey wood a name almost as widely known as that of any London firm. The brothers were born at Prest- wich, of very humble parentage ; their father, indeed, is said at one time to have been in receipt of parish relief. Abel began life as a warehouse boy, on the scanty pittance of eighteenpence a week ; but at the age of twenty he was summarily dismissed by his master in a fit of passion. He now obtained the wholesale agency for the Poor Ma/is Gtiardian, and was very shortly afterwards fined 54 for selling it without a stamp. He could not pay the fine, and was sent to prison for four months ; but his family managed the shop during his incarceration, still sell- ing the Guardian as before, but in a quieter manner.