William Pickering (publisher)

For other people named William Pickering, see William Pickering (disambiguation).

William Pickering (2 April 1796 – 27 April 1854) was an English publisher, notable for introducing cloth binding to British publishing.

Pickering began working as an antiquarian bookseller before 1820, and quickly moved into publishing. In 1819 he began publishing a series of Diamond Classics- small books set in tiny type, that were offered in a uniform binding of cloth or leather at an affordable price of 6 shillings. These are probably the first publishers' bindings in cloth- an innovation which had a rapid and profound impact on the publishing industry.

Pickering also published original work: from 1828 he became Samuel Taylor Coleridge's publisher, as well as bringing out the first edition in ordinary typography of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. He specialised in scholarly editions of classic authors, both of ancient and English literature, including important editions of Blake, Malthus, Boswell, Johnson, Marlowe, Shakespeare and Isaac Walton.

In 1833 Pickering purchased a share in the Gentleman's Magazine, and started a new series in January 1834. He chose as its editor the clergyman John Mitford, known for his writings on old English poets and on sacred poetry. Mitford continued to edit the magazine successfully until the end of 1850.

Pickering launched a 57 volume edition of the British poets; Mitford did much of the writing. This was named the Aldine edition, after the Aldine Press founded in Venice in 1494. Some of the poets were

• William Cowper, 1830, 3 vols. (memoir written by John Bruce in 1865 edit.);
• Oliver Goldsmith, 1831;
• John Milton, 1832, 3 vols., with sonnet to Charles Sumner;
• John Dryden, 1832-3, 5 vols. (life rewritten by the Rev. Richard Hooper in the 1865 and 1866 editions);
• Thomas Parnell, 1833 and 1866 (with epistle in verse to Alexander Dyce);
• Jonathan Swift, 1833-4, 3 vols., and 1866;
• Edward Young, 1834, 2 vols. (with sonnet), 1858 and 1866;
• Matthew Prior, 1835, 2 vols., 1866;
• Samuel Butler, 1835, 2 vols. (with verses to William Lisle Bowles), 1866;
• William Falconer, 1836, 1866 (with sonnet);
• Edmund Spenser, 1839, 5 vols. (with four sonnets, re-edited by John Payne Collier in 1866).

After William Pickering’s death, the business was carried on by his son, Basil Montagu Pickering; on his death, in 1878, it was purchased by ‘old Mr Chatto’, one of the founding partners of Chatto and Windus and became Pickering and Chatto, a name which survives today in two (now separate) companies: the academic publisher Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) and the antiquarian bookseller of the same name.

References

• Carter, John, Binding Variants in English Publishing 1820-1900 (London: Constable and New York: Ray Long and Richard R. Smith, 1932)
• Sadleir, Michael, The Evolution of Publishers' Binding Styles 1770-1900 (London: Constable and New York: Richard R. Smith, 1930)

External links

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