Pioneers of Scottish Publishing

Title-page in Old Style typeface, printed by Constables, 1904

© Napier University, Department of PMPC / Scran

One of the pioneers was Archibald Constable (1774-1827), a native of Fife, who from his office in the High Street in Edinburgh was responsible for publishing the Edinburgh Review (begun in 1802), and played a key role in Sir Walter Scott’s literary career. Constable's publication of Scott’s Waverley in 1814 was a major turning point in British publishing history. Previously, works had been issued and sold in small batches of 750 to 1000. But with Waverley, Constable made the breakthrough to the mass market. It became a best-seller, selling 1,000 copies within a few weeks, and some 6,000 copies within six months. Several cheap editions followed, and by the end of 1829 the work had sold 40,000 copies. Similarly, The Antiquary, sold 6,000 copies on publication in 1816, while over 2,000 copies of Guy Mannering were swept up within a day of publication. Scott and Constable's good fortunes lasted a little over 11 years, from 1814-1825. In 1825, a financial crisis swept through London. Constable and Scott’s financial involvement in London and Edinburgh firms that subsequently closed drew them down as well. Constable died soon afterwards, leaving Scott courageously to declare he would pay off all remaining debts, totalling over £100,000, by writing himself out of debt with as many works as would be needed. He was to labour at this task until his death in 1832.

Other major Scottish publisher during the early 19th century fared better. Among them was William Blackwood (1776-1834), who in 1816 was one of the first commercial concerns to move to the recently built New Town, occupying property on Princes Street. Blackwood published a range of work, and did much to encourage emerging Scottish writers, publishing important novels by some of the finest contemporary writers of the period, including Susan Ferriers Marriage and The Inheritance, John Galt's Annals of the Parish, and James Hogg's The Private Memoirs of a Justified Sinner. His promotion of authors in his monthly literary journal Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, launched in 1817, also kept Scotland fixed as a centre for literary innovation for years to come, featuring George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Edward Bulwer-Lytton and R.D. Blackmore, as well as travel writers like A.W. Kinglake, John Hanning Speke, Laurence Oliphant and others. William Blackwood & Sons would remain an independent, family run concern until merging with Edinburgh printers Pillans & Wilson in the early 1980s.

Another stalwart of Scottish publishing was Oliver & Boyd, begun in 1807/08 by Thomas Oliver and George Boyd and based at Tweeddale Court off the High Street in Edinburgh. Over the nineteenth and twentieth century, the firm forged a reputation in medical publishing and educational textbook publishing, particularly dominating overseas markets. They would remain independent publishers until being taken over in 1896 by George and James Thin and John Grant, well established Edinburgh booksellers, and remain in Tweeddale court for another 94 years. In 1962, after 60+ years under the control of the Thin and Grant families, Oliver & Boyd was acquired by the Financial Times organisation. Later its publishing arm was sold off to Longman’s (later Longman Pearson), and in 1990 it ceased operations in Edinburgh.

William Chambers, founder of the Chambers Publishing Company in Edinburgh

© Hulton Getty / Scran

William & Robert Chambers, who started publishing in 1819, played their part in promoting Scottish publishing interests through determined experiments in cheap, mass volume journal and book publishing. In February 1832, the Chambers brothers launched Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, a penny weekly aimed at the literate middle-classes and artisans with aspirations for self-improvement. Chambers’s flourished - within two years it was averaging a circulation of 50,000, and after the addition of a London agent to enable wider circulation across the U.K., sales rose to a peak of 86,750 a week in 1844. The journal carried on until 1956, as did the firm, until merging with Harrap.

Thomas Nelson

© Edinburgh City Libraries / Scran

Further publishing innovation could be found at the Parkside works of Thomas Nelson and Sons. Bolstered by the entrance of William and Thomas II in 1835 and 1839 respectively (thus becoming Thomas Nelson and Sons), the firm relocated to custom built premises on Edinburgh’s Southside in 1845, and implemented new technology, including a special rotary press invented by Thomas in 1850, which was to increase dramatically its production of religious, educational and children’s texts. It would survive as a separate, family run firm until 1962, when the Thomson Organisation took it over. In 2000, after several restructures and mergers with former competitors, Nelsons merged with Stanley Thornes to become Nelson Thornes, a subsidiary of the multinational Dutch information services firm Wolters Kluwer.

Legal, medical and university publishing was also well served in Scotland, with firms clustering round university centres and Edinburgh’s courts to cater to professional requirements. In 1875 William Green, former Court of Session clerk, began a bookselling business in the Old Town of Edinburgh to cater to his former colleagues. His son Charles took over in 1885 and turned it into a successful publishing firm, initiating popular standard legal reference works such as the Encyclopedia of Scots Law, the Scots Style Book, and in 1893 starting the weekly legal newspaper the Scots Law Times, which soon became the authoritative source of Scottish legal case reporting. The firm also expanded its range to encompass accounting, agricultural and medical texts, particularly after 1906 when it took over the old Edinburgh firm Bell & Bradfute. It in turn was taken over by the English law publishers Sweet & Maxwell Ltd. in 1956, which in turn was acquired by Thomson Corporation in 1987.

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