Alternate Subtitle(s)

• A Newspaper of British and Foreign Literature (Bigmore and Wyman)

Start Date(s)

• 1858 (Denny)
• 1857 (Bigmore and Wyman)

End Date(s)

• 2005 (Denny)

Editor(s)

• Whitaker, George Herbert (Whitaker & Sons, Ltd.)
• Whitaker, Joseph (Whitaker & Sons, Ltd.)
• Whitaker, Joseph Vernon (Whitaker & Sons, Ltd.)

City

• London, England (journal itself)

Type of Content

• “Contains a wide range of trade news: bankruptcies, insolvencies, news of sales of private libraries, copyrights and bookshops, booksellers changing jobs and a copyright tussle with American publishers, plus a complete list of publications of the month compiled from 129 publishers” (Denny p. 65)
• “Contains a gazette of bankruptcies, partnerships, trade gossip, debates, legislation, journalism, book lists, literary intelligence, and lots of advertising” (King 2020, p. 589)

Notes

• One of the book trade’s 3 most important titles (King 2020, p. 585)
• Mostly an advertising sheet, but tried to represent the whole book trade. Claimed it was the first publication to combine trade journalism with advertising/news/stats/lists, etc. (King 2020, pp. 588-89)
• “Nominally a publishers’ medium. The very readable ‘Trade and Literary Gossip’ in each number enters incidentally into the contemporary as well as retrospective history of printing and printers” (Bigmore and Wyman vol. 2, p. 162)
• “A handbook of British and Foreign literature . . . intended primarily for the use of booksellers and publishers, furnishing them with a handy book of references and doing for the Bookselling trade that Bradshaw does for the railways, but so conducted that it may be equally useful to the Book-buyer and to the Bookseller” (vol. 1, p. 2)
• “Key themes, besides the fortunes of the individual publishing and bookselling companies, include a long-running campaign against underselling and attempts to set up the net book agreement. First issue set the template for the trade journal. The Bookseller went online in 2005” (Denny p. 65)
• “This is a handbook of British and foreign literature, and contains a monthly list of new works published, and advertisements of forthcoming publications. It is a complete guide to the issues of the London publishers, and gives analytical reviews of books and interesting intelligence connected with the trade. Published at 12, Warwick Lane, E.C.” (Mitchell's 1895, p. 62)
• Publisher’s address (Whitaker & Sons): 12 Warwick Lane, London (BLT19 Database) and Mitchell's (1905)
• Still in print online: https://www.thebookseller.com

Subject Categories

• Advertising
• Bibliography
• Book Trade & Bookselling
• Book Trade News
• Printing History
• Publishing

Sources that Discuss this Journal

• BLT19
• Bigmore and Wyman vol. 2, p. 162
• COPAC
• Denny p. 65
• Fyfe p. 1
• Growoll pp. 167-68
• Hubbard p. 914
• King, "Trade" pp. 585, 588-89
• Mitchell’s 1895 p. 62
• Shattock p. 85
• Stewart vol. 1, p. 376
• Sullivan vol. 3, pp. 49-54
• Ulrich and Kup p. 138

Works Cited

• Bigmore, E. C., and C. W. H. Wyman. A Bibliography of Printing. 1880. Oak Knoll P and the British Library, 2001.
• BLT19 Trade and Professional Press Database 1900. Created by Andrew King, 2020.
• COPAC: Consortium of Online Public Access Catalogues. Library Hub Discover, JISC.
• Denny, Neil. "Bookseller." Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland, edited by Marysa Demoor and Laurel Brake, Academia Press, 2009, p. 65. Google Books.
• Fyfe, Paul. “2008 Van Arsdel Prize Graduate Student Essay: The Random Selection of Victorian New Media.” Victorian Periodicals Review, vol. 42, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1–23. JSTOR.
• Growoll, Adolf. "Periodicals Published for the English Booktrade 1797-1903." Three Centuries of English Booktrade Bibliography, ed. Growoll and Wilberforce Eames. Holland P, 1903, pp. 163-73. Google Books.
• Hubbard, Harlan P. Hubbard's Newspaper and Bank Directory of the World. Hubbard, 1882-84. Google Books.
• King, Andrew. “The Trade and Professional Press.” The Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press, edited by David Finkelstein, Vol. 2: Expansion and Evolution, Edinburgh UP, 2020, pp. 558–95.
• Mitchell’s Newspaper Press Directory and Advertiser’s Guide. C. Mitchell, 1895.
• Shattock, Joanne. The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Vol. 4: 1800-1900. Edited by Frederick W. Bateson. 3rd ed. Cambridge UP. 1999.
• Stewart, James D., editor. British Union-Catalogue of Periodicals. 4 vols. Butterworths, 1968.
• Sullivan, Alvin. British Literary Magazines. 4 vols. Greenwood, 1983.
• Ulrich, Carolyn F., and Karl Kup. Books and Printing: A Selected List of Periodicals, 1800-1942. W. E. Rudge, 1943.