This week feels as if it's been busy, but equally highly productive - not only did we manage to get hold of a table for the hall after spending quite a bit of time looking for something at the right price and condition but at the same time I had a very productive email discussion with Weymouth Museum about John Pruddah, the owner of the Royal Library, a circulating library in Weymouth in the 1870's, and his relationship with Mudie's.
Mudie's, through its network of franchisees, and WH Smith, through its railway station bookstalls and circulating library, effectively controlled much of the book trade in late Victorian Britain.
For example Mudie's tried to drive down the price it paid for books including in the 1890's pressuring the publishers of Mary Braddon's Sons of Fire to bring out a cheap single volume yellowback version almost as soon as the triple decker version was published - if you have access to the Irish Times archive you can find a letter (Sept 24, 1895) from ME Braddon in complaining about her publishers being pressured to produce a cheap single volume edition.
Mudie's, and circulating libraries in general also seem to have been a source of second hand books in Australia - I've enough circumstantial evidence to convince me that there were some importers and distributors of second hand books, but I've been unable as yet to track down the company involved.
And in among all of this I managed a decent early morning bike ride - I think I'm getting fitter and probably should start thinking about adding a bit more distance to my circuit round the town...
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