Bevieic of Revieics, lj3!li 



NOTABLE BOOKS. 



89 



later Putnam entered the emplo)- of 

 Messrs. Wiley & Long, publishers and 

 booksellers, and seven years later be- 

 came a partner. Thus was laid the 

 foundation of the great publishing 

 business and a most interesting career. 

 After some few years Mr. Putnam con- 

 sidered it was necessary to come to Lon- 

 don and start an agency for the de- 

 velopment o.f his business. He had 

 married, at the age of twenty-six, a 

 charming girl of sixteen. One or two 

 of the letters which he wrote to his 

 betrothed are still i^reserved, and the 

 respectful way in which the\' begin and 

 end is most amusing. 



KNICKERBOCKER COTTAGE. 

 In London they lived in the IMorning- 

 ton Road, and called their little house 

 *' Knickerbocker Cottage." It soon be- 

 came a rallying place for a considerable 

 number of individuals, staid and con- 

 servative Londoners, Continental exiles, 

 and so on ; among them was Mazzini, 

 Carl Blind, and a quiet, ill-featured 

 sallow-cheeked young man who was 

 known a few )'ears later as Napoleon 

 III. Here Mr. Putnam was living on 

 the day on which the great Petition for 

 the Charter was presented to the House 

 of Commons, when he met Louis Nano- 

 leon carrying a musket as a special con- 

 stable on London Bridge. The con- 

 stables were jirovided with muskets, 

 which probabl}' a considerable portion 

 of the trusty butchers and grocers were 

 handing for the hrst time m their lives. 

 Indeed, during this seven years' resi- 

 dence in London, many remarkable 

 movements were in the air, such as the 

 Reform of the Corn Laws, Home Rule 

 for Ireland, Puseyism, etc., and it is 

 quaint to read " The Cretan Christians 

 who are in revolt have already assumed 

 the title of a Commonwealth. The ex- 

 citement among the Christians on the 

 frontier of Turke>' is encouraged by the 

 Powers that desire to see a Christian 

 kingdom on this side the Balkans, and 

 by the Hospodars, who hope to make 

 Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, etc., into 

 a kingdom." 



ENGLAND TO U.S. IN FORTY DAYS ! 

 Mr. Putnam's son prints a delightful 

 MS. account of a record of the travel 

 in Europe of his father and mother. 



Travel in those days, when a journey to 

 America took forty days, and to get on 

 a steam packet was something excep- 

 tionally weird and dangerous, was not 

 at all easy. Though keeping the ex- 

 penditure down as much as possible 

 the calculations of the pair had in some 

 way been exceeded, and his father had 

 to pledge his watch. He was unwilling 

 to speak to his wife of the difficulty, 

 but with unconscious perversity, she 

 persisted in making repeated inquiries 

 for the precise time ! The watch, after- 

 wards redeemed and later given over to 

 the eldest son, was stolen bv a burglar 

 in 1SS3. 



LOWELL'S FA:\I0US RHYME. 



Mr. Putnam soon afterwards had to 

 return to America, and from this point 

 the descriptions we get of the notable 

 people with whom his business brought 

 him in contact is historically valuable. 

 The two Brownings, Longfellow, Ten- 

 n\-son, Hawthorne, the authoress of 

 "The Wide, Wide World," and many 

 another came to him to publish their 

 works. 



Lowell, then a very young writer, 

 wrote to ask them to publish his Fable 

 for the Critics, and the poem was 

 promptly sent to New York, and we 

 give here the famous rhymed title- 

 page:— 



Reuder, walk up at once (it will soon be tao late). 



And buy. at a perfectly ruinous rate, 



A Fable for Oritics; or better 



I like, r.s a thing that the reader's first fancy 



may strike, 

 An old-fashioned title-page, such as presents 

 A tabular view of the volume's contents: 

 A glance at a few of our litei-'ary progenies 

 (Mrs. Malaprop's word) from the tub of Diogenes; 

 A vocal and musical medley, that is 

 A series of jokes by a wonderful quiz. 

 Who aocompia.nies himself with a rub-a-dub-dub. 

 Full of spirit and givace, on the top of the tub. 

 Set forth in October, the twenty-first day. 

 In the year '48. (1. P. Putnam, Broadway. 



As will be seen, the Putnam name 

 and address fitted in finely, but before 

 the publication of the next edition the 

 publishing office had beeni moved to lo 

 Park Lane, and through some oversight 

 the printer was permitted without send- 

 ing in a proof to p'ace the new address 

 at the bottom of the title-page. As ^vill 

 readily be seen, therefore, the last line 

 failed to rhyme. 



CSotices of other hookf will he found on page 101.) 



