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May i, 1886 The Publishers' Circular 43i
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THE LATE SAMPSON LOW.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
May I, 1886 The Publishers' Circular 43i
May i , 1886 The Publishers' Circular 43 i
i i i
The Late Sampson Low.
THE LATE SAMPSON LOW .
Since the death of Mr . Henry G . Bohn , Mr . Low was doubtless the oldest of English
I publishers , and was probably the only one (living in the year 1886 who was born so far I back as in the fog month' of the fifth year
of the French Republic ( 1707 ) . His father , Sampson Low , was a printer and publisher in
Berwick Street , Soho , during the period of 1 that great French Revolution , and when
Edmund Burke , his near neighbour , and William Cowper were still living . He died in
ii * the year 1800 ( the same year as Cowper ) , and his son survived him for 86 years . Mr . Low
served a short apprenticeship in the house of i Mr . Lionel Booth , the librarian ; and , after a
few years spent in the house of Longman & Co ., he began business in 1819 in Lamb's Conduit
Street , as a librarian and publisher , his father ' s business in Berwick Street having been
suspended during his minority . i In those days Lamb ' s Conduit Street had
! very wealthy and aristocratic surroundings , and for a period of thirty years Mr . Low ' s
reading-room was the resort of many of the best-known literary men , lawyers , and
politicians of the day . Mr . Low did not publish much in those early days , but what he did
produce was done with excellent taste . Always
an active and popular member of the trade
he was ever ready , without a thought of personal inconvenience , to carry through , and
that most thoroughly , what others would only suggest . In this way he took a very energetic
part in a society which once existed amongst publishers and booksellers for the protection
of retail booksellers against undersellers . For several years he performed the thankless and
really laborious office of secretary to this association , and to him used to come every
bookseller in London to obtain a protection ticket for his collecting book ; without the exhibition
of this ticket no collector could obtain the j books of any publisher belonging to the
association , and it cannot be doubted that during its existence retail booksellers were to a very
real extent i ) r (> kected against the suicidal system of underselling , which , since its
abolition in 1852 , has worked so injuriously for them . In June of that year the committee ,
after taking the opinion of Lord Campbell , Mr . Gladstone , T . B . Macaulay , and others ,
came to the conclusion ' not to offer any rules for the guidance of the trade , or to interfere
with individual action in any way . For his services in this connection the trade presented
him with a handsome service of plate , which bears the following inscription : ' Presented to
Mr . Sampson Low as a slight mark o esteem
Pc00502
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Citation
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Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), May 1, 1886, page 431, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_01051886/page/5/
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