fisher t. unwin and victorian ‘ library series
others, and purchasers were encouraged to collect the complete ‘set’. Readers could be loyal to a branded series in the same way they could be to a particular author and as a result, the sales and marketing e V ort behind such brands could be both economical and e V ective. From the beginning, this held true for new works as well as for reprints. The Parlour Library itself included a number of original works. Bentley’s Standard Novels (Colburn split o V in 1832) included original works in its latter days. And the nineties also saw, for example, John Lane’s Keynotes series, published by Bodley Head, which brought to market in a uniform series a final total of thirty-three original works by new and established avant garde writers. One innovative publisher in late Victorian times was to make the library series concept his own. T. Fisher Unwin was born in 1848 – the year that saw the first Smith’s railway bookstall. He was apprenticed at the age of twenty to Jackson, Walford, and Hodder (the predecessor of Hodder & Stoughton), and eventually struck out on his own in 1882 by purchasing the firm of Marshall, Japp & Co. for £ 1,000, which he relaunched under his own name. The firm flourished into the 20th Century when, in 1914, Unwin bought a controlling interest in the failing George Allen and Sons to create George Allen and Unwin. His early success was in no small part due to his ‘reader’, Edward Garnett, who came from a well-connected literary family. Together, Unwin and Garnett built the business and its reputation on an enterprising list of young authors, many of whom were later to become illustrious writers, notably Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, John Galsworthy, and W.B Yeats. They also showed a particular flair for marketing and exploited the library series concept more than any other contemporary pub- lisher. The Unwin catalogue of 1917 listed no less than twenty-eight di V erent series. The earliest success was a series called The Pseudonym Library. Originally conceived by Garnett, it was innovative in a number of ways. First, it focused on original works rather than reprints, while still keeping to the a V ordable price points established by the existing yellowback publishers. Second, Unwin realised that if they used pseudonyms, they could source that new material from good writers, free of existing contractual constraints. Third, the an- onymity created an air of mystery and intrigue around their stable
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