Mr. Thomas
Longman.

world and very imperfectly apprehended by the public at large." On September 6th appears an obituary notice written by Mr. William Lucas Sargant.

On the latter date the death of Mr. Thomas Longman, the head of the great publishing house, is recorded. He died at his residence, Farnborough Hall, on the 30th of August, in his seventy-fifth year. He was the eldest and last surviving son of Thomas Norton Longman. "The great event of his life was Illustrated the completion of his illustrated edition of New the New Testament, which stands by itself Testament. as a specimen of illustration on wood. It

edition of the

was the hobby of his life. His great love of art and the artistic feeling with which he was endowed were strongly developed in the production of his great work. No time, labour, or expense was spared to make it successful. His object was to produce in black and white the effect produced in colour in the old Earliest illuminated MSS......The earliest title-page title-page with the name of that bears the name of Longman (so far as

Longman. Mr. C. J. Longman is aware) is that of 'The

Countess of Moreton's Daily Exercise; or,

a Book of Prayers and Rules.' The date is 1665. The copy in Mr. C. J. Longman's possession is one of an edition reprinted in 1848 for private circulation at the desire of

Anne Isabella, Viscountess Hawarden, then in her ninetieth year. Besides the name of T. Longman there is on the title-page the name of T. Osborn, who was doubtless one of the family with whom the Longmans intermarried, and one of whom was in partnership with them when they moved to the 'Sign of the Ship' in Paternoster Row in 1726. Between the date of this book and 1726 the traces of the Longman family as publishers are scanty, but after the latter date the various generations succeed each other regularly."

and the

Ballad

Society.

Mr. Ebsworth, it is stated on the Ist of Mr. Ebsworth November, "has succeeded Mr. William Chappell as editor of the 'Roxburghe Ballads' for the Ballad Society, and will copy and cut the woodblock illustrations from the old broadsides with his own hand."

Blackwood.

On the same date a notice appears of John Mr. John Blackwood, the senior partner of the firm of William Blackwood & Sons, and the sixth and last surviving son of William Blackwood,*

* Mr. William Blackwood died on the 16th of Mr. William September, 1834. He was born in Edinburgh, December Blackwood. 20th, 1776. After serving his apprenticeship at Messrs. Bell & Bradfute's, in 1800 he entered into business with Mr. Ross; but he soon retired from the partnership, and, proceeding to London, placed himself, for improvement in the antiquarian department of his trade, with

the founder of the famous magazine. John Blackwood died on the 29th of October. He was born in Edinburgh, December 7th, 1818. "In 1840 a branch office of the Edinburgh firm was opened under his direction in Pall Mall, which was subsequently removed to Paternoster Row. As the London representative of his brothers, Messrs. Alexander and Robert Blackwood, who on their father's death, in 1834, had succeeded to the business, John Blackwood proved himself most active and judicious, while his literary tastes led him into society and secured him friendships which proved of great advantage to the magazine......On the death of Mr. Alexander Blackwood, under whose short editorship the influence and popularity of Blackwood's Magazine had been largely inBlackwood's creased, John Blackwood was summoned down

Becomes editor of

Magazine. to Edinburgh to undertake the management

of the literary business. From the outset his editorship of the magazine was marked by signal ability and tact. He made powerful literary friends, and he always succeeded in keeping them attached to himself......Mr. Blackwood had many editorial triumphs during the

Mr. Cuthill. In 1814 he returned to Edinburgh, where he established himself in business. In 1816 he removed from the Old to the New Town of Edinburgh, and in April, 1817, the first number of Blackwood was published.

three-and-thirty years of his literary career.

Prominent among these was the success which

"Caxton" series.

Lord Lytton's 'Caxton' series of novels Lord Lytton's achieved in the magazine, and the sensation which the 'Coming Race' and the 'Parisians' caused before the authorship of those tales was known. But it will be as the publisher who first recognized the early genius of George George Eliot. Eliot that Mr. Blackwood's name will be most permanently connected with English literature. After reading the first instalment of 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' which he received anonymously, Mr. Blackwood was able to make up his mind that his new contributor was an author of no ordinary power; and we believe her later successes only realized the prospects which he then saw ready to open up before her. He was also fortunate in obtaining the friendship of Charles Lever when his powers were at Charles Lever. their highest maturity, and from his first introduction into the columns of 'Maga' the pen of Cornelius O'Dowd' continued to steadily amuse its readers until his death, more than ten years after. Mrs. Oliphant, Mrs. Oliphant. whose ability he encouraged at a time when she was almost unknown in the literary world, has also, it is understood, been one of the principal contributors to the magazine during the last ten or fifteen years......In the management of the

Le Livre.

Mr. Delane, editor of the

affairs of his house he was always actuated by a high sense of honour and a consideration for the interests of those who were dealing with him. In all literary questions his opinion. was held by his brother publishers in very high regard, and he gave valuable evidence before the Copyright Commission in 1877. Few men of his generation have done more than he to serve the true interests of literature, and few will be more regretted by those authors who had the privilege of his friendship."

On the 29th of November it is announced that "a new monthly bibliographical review will be started in Paris on the 10th of January, under the title of Le Livre. It promises to be of special interest to bibliophiles, for while treating of literary topics very extensively, both critically and historically, it will be more artistically presented than any of the other journals devoted exclusively to books, rivalling in paper and ornamentation the best modern art journals. The portion devoted to the literary topics of other countries will form a very considerable feature."

The death, at the age of sixty-two, of Mr. Times. Delane, the late editor of the Times, is announced on the same date. His health had rallied somewhat when he retired from Printing House Square, but his friends had