OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (APPLETON.) 



575 



inches square and half an inch thick, but its pub- 

 lication caused the firm of D. Appleton & Co. 

 more anxiety than the American Cyclopaedia, 

 undertaken some thirty years later. The little 

 book was called Daily Crumbs from the Master's 

 Table, and consisted of selections from Bible 

 texts. We sold about a thousand ' Crumbs,' and 

 were very well satisfied so well, indeed, that we 

 followed it by a similar book, which was equally 

 successful. The third book we published was 

 called A Refuge in Time of Plague and Pestilence, 

 and it had an enormous sale, for it appeared in 

 1832, the terrible cholera year, and the public 

 mistook it for a treatise on that disease, whereas 

 it was a religious volume, pointing out Christ as 

 the refuge." With the growth of the business, 

 which still consisted for the most part of the 

 sale of foreign importations, it became desirable 



i 



to form closer relations with foreign publishers, 

 and in 1835 William H. Appleton crossed the 

 ocean in a sailing vessel to make his business 

 known abroad. While in London he met John 

 Murray, whose relations with Byron, Scott, 

 Southey, and others are a part of the annals of 

 literature, and the meeting was the beginning 

 of a family friendship. He was also welcomed 

 by Thomas Norton Longman, then the senior 

 member of a firm that dates from the first half 

 of the eighteenth century. At a dinner given, 

 as was Mr. Longman's custom, in a room over 

 the store, Mr. Appleton met Thomas Moore, of 

 whose humor and geniality the young American 

 naturally retained a vivid impression. In the 

 course of a visit to Germany, which followed his 

 stay in England, Mr. Appleton met the elder 

 Tauchnitz, founder of that well-known publish- 

 ing house. In January, 1838, William H. Apple- 

 ton was taken into partnership with his father, 

 and the firm assumed the familiar title of Dan- 

 iel Appleton and Company, the name always 

 signed officially in full in accordance with the 

 request which the founder made of his son Wil- 

 liam when he retired from business, in 1848, the 



year before his death. In 1838 also the business, 

 which had been growing rapidly, was removed 

 to No. 200 Broadway. One of the successful ven- 

 tures of that time was the publication of Tract 

 No. 49 and other products of the Tractarian con- 

 troversy. The firm had been best known as job- 

 bers in domestic and imported books, but their 

 publishing enterprises soon became more exten- 

 sive. The output included several editions of 

 the Prayer Book, Ure's Dictionary, the works of 

 Byron and Moore, and a series known as Tales 

 for the People, which proved to be some of the 

 most successful publishing ventures of the period. 

 In 1848, when Daniel Appleton retired from the 

 house he had founded, the firm was reorganized, 

 and William H. Appleton became its head, with 

 his brothers John Adams and Daniel Sidney as 

 partners. Later he was joined by his brothers 

 Samuel Francis and George Swett. In the arrange- 

 ments for two of the most important publish- 

 ing enterprises undertaken by this house Wil- 

 liam H. Appleton had a leading part. One was 

 the publication of the New American Cyclo- 

 paedia, under the editorship of George Ripley 

 and Charles A. Dana; and the other was the 

 introduction of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and 

 Spencer to American readers. In 1857 the first 

 of the 16 volumes of the Cyclopaedia ap- 

 peared. In spite of the great panic of 1857 

 and interruptions due to the civil war, the 

 work, which cost $500,000 before there was any 

 return, was carried to a successful completion 

 in six years under the supervision of Mr. William 

 H. Appleton and his brothers. In 1876 a revised 

 edition of the American Cyclopaedia was com- 

 pleted at an initial cost of more than $500,000. 

 Through the late Prof. Edward L. Youmans the 

 Messrs. Appleton became the publishers of Dar- 

 win and others of the group associated with him. 

 One result of this enterprise, which seems curi- 

 ous now, was the violent criticism of the firm 

 by clergymen. Among the many personal ap- 

 peals made to William H. Appleton against these 

 books was one from a bishop, who warned him 

 that he would be punished in this world arid the 

 world to come. Mr. Appleton replied by asking 

 whether he was to be held responsible for con- 

 verts to Rome made by the Pusey books, which 

 were published on the bishop's advice. Through- 

 out his career Mr. Appleton, himself a strong 

 Churchman, took the position that, while a pub- 

 lisher should decline immoral or absolutely irre- 

 ligious books, he was at liberty to issue books 

 representing radically different phases of belief 

 without the presumption that his imprint meant 

 indorsement. Among the many other large af- 

 fairs in which Mr. Appleton took an important 

 part were the publication of Webster's Speller, 

 of which more than 1,000,000 copies a year were 

 sold, Benton's Thirty Years' View in Congress, 

 Disraeli's Lothair, Picturesque America, and the 

 Popular Science Monthly. The first volume of 

 Prof. McMaster's History of the People of the 

 United States was read and accepted by Mr. 

 Appleton himself. The history of his life is prac- 

 tically the history of the house. The part that 

 Mr. Appleton too'k personally in laboring for in- 

 ternational copyright was most active and hon- 

 orable, and there is probably no one living whose 

 relation to this long struggle has been approxi- 

 mately so close. He was convinced very early 

 in his active life of the injustice done to authors 

 and to all who were interested in literary prop- 

 erty by the failure of this country to respect its 

 rights. In 1853 he addressed a letter to Edward 

 Everett advocating an international arrangement 

 as a matter of justice and sound policy. In 1871 



