Random Recollections of an Old Publisher

William Tinsley (1830-1900) was a noted Victorian publisher whose catalogue included works by such celebrated novelists as Thomas Hardy and Wilkie Collins. This two-volume autobiography, first published in 1900, traces his life from his rural childhood to the establishment and rise of the Tinsley Brothers company in 1858, and its later collapse. Each chapter contains a series of brief sketches of authors and other contemporaries. Volume 1 spans Tinsley’s early days and travels to London, along with his first encounters with the publishing world. It includes detailed portraits of Mary Elizabeth Braddon and H. J. Byron, and incorporates material on the development of transport and general commerce in the Victorian era. Based on Tinsley’s personal recollections, and incorporating letters as well as anecdotal information, these volumes will fascinate anyone interested in the history of publishing and the development of the nineteenth-century novel.