1.
Victorian era
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The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victorias reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities, the era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe, culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and arts. The end of the saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of political reform, industrial reform. Two especially important figures in period of British history are the prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. Disraeli, favoured by the queen, was a gregarious Conservative and his rival Gladstone, a Liberal distrusted by the Queen, served more terms and oversaw much of the overall legislative development of the era. The population of England and Wales almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, Scotlands population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However, Irelands population decreased sharply, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15 million emigrants departed the UK permanently, in search of a life in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia. During the early part of the era, politics in the House of Commons involved battles between the two parties, the Whigs/Liberals and the Conservatives. These parties were led by such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18. Her long reign until 1901 was mainly a time of peace, Britain reached the zenith of its economic, political, diplomatic and cultural power. The era saw the expansion of the second British Empire, Historians have characterised the mid-Victorian era as Britains Golden Years. There was prosperity, as the income per person grew by half. There was peace abroad, and social peace at home, opposition to the new order melted away, says Porter. The Chartist movement peaked as a movement among the working class in 1848, its leaders moved to other pursuits, such as trade unions
2.
York
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York is a historic walled city at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The municipality is the county town of Yorkshire to which it gives its name. The city has a heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events in England throughout much of its two millennia of existence. The city offers a wealth of attractions, of which York Minster is the most prominent. The city was founded by the Romans as Eboracum in 71 AD and it became the capital of the Roman province of Britannia Inferior, and later of the kingdoms of Northumbria and Jórvík. In the Middle Ages, York grew as a wool trading centre and became the capital of the northern ecclesiastical province of the Church of England. In the 19th century, York became a hub of the railway network, in recent decades, the economy of York has moved from being dominated by its confectionery and railway-related industries to one that provides services. The University of York and health services have become major employers, from 1996, the term City of York describes a unitary authority area which includes rural areas beyond the old city boundaries. In 2011 the urban area had a population of 153,717, the word York derives from the Latinised name for the city, variously rendered as Eboracum, Eburacum or Eburaci. The first mention of York by this name is dated to circa 95–104 AD as an address on a wooden stylus tablet from the Roman fortress of Vindolanda in Northumberland, the toponymy of Eboracum is uncertain because the language of the pre-Roman indigenous population was never recorded. They are thought to have spoken a Celtic language related to modern Welsh, in his Historia Regum Britanniae the 12th century chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth, suggests the name derives from that of a pre-Roman city founded by the legendary king Ebraucus. Alternatively, the word already existed as an Old English word for wild swine. The Anglo-Saxon newcomers probably interpreted the part as eofor, and -rac as ric, while -um was a common abbreviation of the Saxon -heem. To them, it sounded as a home rich in boar, as is common in Saxon place names, the -um part gradually faded, eoforic. When the Danish army conquered the city in 866, its name became Jórvík, the Old French and Norman name of the city following the Norman Conquest was recorded as Everwic in works such as Waces Roman de Rou. The form York was first recorded in the 13th century, many company and place names, such as the Ebor race meeting, refer to the Roman name. The Archbishop of York uses Ebor as his surname in his signature, archaeological evidence suggests that Mesolithic people settled in the region of York between 8000 and 7000 BC, although it is not known whether their settlements were permanent or temporary. By the time of the Roman conquest of Britain, the area was occupied by a known to the Romans as the Brigantes
3.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
4.
Charles Dickens
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Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the worlds best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era and his works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity, born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors prison. Dickenss literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers, within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the publication of narrative fiction. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audiences reaction, and he modified his plot. For example, when his wifes chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities and his plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the poor chipped in hapennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up. Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age and his 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also adapted, and, like many of his novels. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London, Dickens has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of depth, loose writing. The term Dickensian is used to something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, at 1 Mile End Terrace, Landport in Portsea Island and his father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam, rigger to His Majestys Navy, gentleman, Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickenss eponymous Dombey and Son. In January 1815 John Dickens was called back to London, when Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness, and thence to Chatham, Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he himself a very small. Charles spent time outdoors but also read voraciously, including the novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding, as well as Robinson Crusoe
5.
Shanklin
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Shanklin is a popular seaside resort and civil parish on the Isle of Wight, England, located on Sandown Bay. Shanklin is the southernmost of three settlements which occupy the bay, and is close to Lake and Sandown, the sandy beach, its Old Village and a wooded ravine, Shanklin Chine, are its main attractions. The esplanade along the beach is occupied by hotels and restaurants for the most part, the other is the Old Village, at the top of Shanklin Chine. Together with Sandown, Shanklin forms a built up area of 21,374 inhabitants, near Regent Street are the towns two main supermarkets, the Co-op and Lidl. In Regent Street itself are many shops, including two arts and crafts shops, several clothing and sports shops, three newsagents and three bakeries. The High Street also has local shops, but is dominated by tourist shops. Shanklin railway station is the terminus of the Island Line from Ryde, the railway was extended south to Ventnor in 1866, but this section was closed in 1966. The line from Ryde to Shanklin is now operated by former London Underground tube trains, in October 2004 a direct link was revived in the form of a bus service named the Rail link. This was discontinued in 2010 but was replaced by the Southern Vectis number 3 bus, bus services to nearby towns and suburbs are run by Southern Vectis and Wightbus, mainly on routes 2,3, and 23, principally from the bus stands at The CO-OP. Destinations served include Newchurch, Newport, Ryde, Sandown, Ventnor, in the summer, an open top bus route called The Sandown Bay Tour is run, serving the main tourist areas of Shanklin and running to Sandown. Shanklin has one theatre, Shanklin Theatre, which is just off the top end of the High Street. In July 1868 the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow stayed at the Crab Inn in Shanklins Old Village during his last visit to Europe and it is not generally held to be amongst his best work. The 1980s indiepop band Trixies Big Red Motorbike were from Shanklin, victoria Cross recipient and Deputy Governor of the Isle of Wight, Colonel Henry Gore-Browne retired to Shanklin before his death in 1912. Shanklin is on the coast of Sandown Bay, and therefore is part of the beach which spans between Yaverland in the North to Luccombe in the South. The section of beach situated next to Shanklin is split into Small Hope Beach, available to be hired for a childs birthday party. There are several seafront hotels, a lift from the seafront to the top of the cliff, a putting course, several cafes and restaurants and pubs. Shanklin used to have a pier, but this was destroyed in the Great Storm of 1987, the pier formerly had a theatre at which many famous performers appeared, including Paul Robeson, Richard Tauber and Arthur Askey. The Summerland Amusement Arcade on the seafront was formerly a seaplane hangar positioned at Bembridge where it housed Fairey Campania seaplanes of the Nizam of Hyderabads Squadron, Shanklin Sailing Club is situated at the North end of the Esplanade
6.
Isle of Wight
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The Isle of Wight /ˈaɪl əv ˈwaɪt/ is a county and the largest and second-most populous island in England. It is located in the English Channel, about 4 miles off the coast of Hampshire, the island has resorts that have been holiday destinations since Victorian times, and is known for its mild climate, coastal scenery, and verdant landscape of fields, downland and chines. The island has been home to the poets Swinburne and Tennyson and to Queen Victoria and it has a maritime and industrial tradition including boat building, sail making, the manufacture of flying boats, the hovercraft, and Britains space rockets. The island hosts annual festivals including the Isle of Wight Festival. It has well-conserved wildlife and some of the richest cliffs and quarries for dinosaur fossils in Europe, the Isle was owned by a Norman family until 1293 and was earlier a kingdom in its own right. Rural for most of its history, its Victorian fashionability and the affordability of holidays led to significant urban development during the late 19th. The island was part of Hampshire until 1890 when it became its own administrative county, apart from a shared police force, there is now no administrative link with Hampshire, although a combined local authority with Portsmouth and Southampton is being considered. Until 1995 the island had a governor, the quickest public transport link to the mainland is the hovercraft from Ryde to Southsea, while three ferry and two catamaran services cross the Solent to Southampton, Lymington and Portsmouth. During the Ice Age, sea levels were lower and the Solent was part of a river flowing south east from current day Poole Harbour towards mid-Channel. As sea levels rose, the valley became flooded. The first inhabitants are assumed to have been hunter-gatherers migrating by land during the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age period, as the ice age began to recede. From the Neolithic era onwards, there are indications that the island had wide trading links, with a port at Bouldnor, evidence of Bronze Age tin trading, caesar reported that the Belgae took the Isle of Wight in about 85 BC and gave its name as Vectis. The Roman historian Suetonius mentions that the island was captured by the commander Vespasian, the Romans built no towns or roads on the island, but the remains of at least seven Roman villas have been found, indicating the prosperity of local agriculture. During the Dark Ages the island was settled by Jutes as the kingdom of Wihtwara under King Arwald. In 685 it was invaded by Caedwalla, who tried to replace the inhabitants with his own followers and it suffered especially from Viking raids, and was often used as a winter base by Viking raiders when they were unable to reach Normandy. Later, both Earl Tostig and his brother Harold Godwinson held manors on the island, the Norman Conquest of 1066 created the position of Lord of the Isle of Wight, the island being given by William the Conqueror to his kinsman William FitzOsbern. Carisbrooke Priory and the fort of Carisbrooke Castle were then founded, allegiance was sworn to FitzOsbern rather than the king, the Lordship was subsequently granted to the de Redvers family by Henry I, after his succession in 1100. For nearly 200 years the island was a semi-independent feudal fiefdom, the final private owner was the Countess Isabella de Fortibus, who, on her deathbed in 1293, was persuaded to sell it to Edward I
7.
Leipzig
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Leipzig is the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany. With a population of 570,087 inhabitants it is Germanys tenth most populous city, Leipzig is located about 160 kilometres southwest of Berlin at the confluence of the White Elster, Pleisse, and Parthe rivers at the southern end of the North German Plain. Leipzig has been a city since at least the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The city sits at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, Leipzig was once one of the major European centers of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing. Leipzig became an urban center within the German Democratic Republic after the Second World War. Leipzig later played a significant role in instigating the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, through events which took place in, Leipzig today is an economic center and the most livable city in Germany, according to the GfK marketing research institution. Since the opening of the Leipzig City Tunnel in 2013, Leipzig forms the centerpiece of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland public transit system, Leipzig is currently listed as Gamma World City and Germanys Boomtown. Outside of Leipzig the Neuseenland district forms a lake area of approximately 300 square kilometres. Leipzig is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means settlement where the linden trees stand, an older spelling of the name in English is Leipsic. The Latin name Lipsia was also used, the name is cognate with Lipetsk in Russia and Liepāja in Latvia. In 1937 the Nazi government officially renamed the city Reichsmessestadt Leipzig, the common usage of this nickname for Leipzig up until the present is reflected, for example, in the name of a popular blog for local arts and culture, Heldenstadt. de. Leipzig was first documented in 1015 in the chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg as urbs Libzi and endowed with city, Leipzig Trade Fair, started in the Middle Ages, became an event of international importance and is the oldest remaining trade fair in the world. During the Thirty Years War, two battles took place in Breitenfeld, about 8 kilometres outside Leipzig city walls, the first Battle of Breitenfeld took place in 1631 and the second in 1642. Both battles resulted in victories for the Swedish-led side, on 24 December 1701, an oil-fueled street lighting system was introduced. The city employed light guards who had to follow a schedule to ensure the punctual lighting of the 700 lanterns. The Leipzig region was the arena of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig between Napoleonic France and a coalition of Prussia, Russia, Austria and Sweden. It was the largest battle in Europe prior to the First World War, in 1913 the Monument to the Battle of the Nations celebrating the centenary of this event was completed. The railway station has two entrance halls, the eastern one for the Royal Saxon State Railways and the western one for the Prussian state railways
8.
Internet Archive
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The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library with the stated mission of universal access to all knowledge. As of October 2016, its collection topped 15 petabytes, in addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating for a free and open Internet. Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains over 150 billion web captures, the Archive also oversees one of the worlds largest book digitization projects. Founded by Brewster Kahle in May 1996, the Archive is a 501 nonprofit operating in the United States. It has a budget of $10 million, derived from a variety of sources, revenue from its Web crawling services, various partnerships, grants, donations. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, where about 30 of its 200 employees work, Most of its staff work in its book-scanning centers. The Archive has data centers in three Californian cities, San Francisco, Redwood City, and Richmond, the Archive is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium and was officially designated as a library by the State of California in 2007. Brewster Kahle founded the Archive in 1996 at around the time that he began the for-profit web crawling company Alexa Internet. In October 1996, the Internet Archive had begun to archive and preserve the World Wide Web in large quantities, the archived content wasnt available to the general public until 2001, when it developed the Wayback Machine. In late 1999, the Archive expanded its collections beyond the Web archive, Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. It hosts a number of projects, the NASA Images Archive, the contract crawling service Archive-It. According to its web site, Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture, without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form, the Archives mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars. In August 2012, the Archive announced that it has added BitTorrent to its file download options for over 1.3 million existing files, on November 6,2013, the Internet Archives headquarters in San Franciscos Richmond District caught fire, destroying equipment and damaging some nearby apartments. The nonprofit Archive sought donations to cover the estimated $600,000 in damage, in November 2016, Kahle announced that the Internet Archive was building the Internet Archive of Canada, a copy of the archive to be based somewhere in the country of Canada. The announcement received widespread coverage due to the implication that the decision to build an archive in a foreign country was because of the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump. Kahle was quoted as saying that on November 9th in America and it was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and it means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions
9.
National Library of Australia
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In 2012–2013, the National Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, and an additional 15,506 metres of manuscript material. In 1901, a Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was established to serve the newly formed Federal Parliament of Australia, from its inception the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was driven to development of a truly national collection. The present library building was opened in 1968, the building was designed by the architectural firm of Bunning and Madden. The foyer is decorated in marble, with windows by Leonard French. In 2012–2013 the Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, the Librarys collections of Australiana have developed into the nations single most important resource of materials recording the Australian cultural heritage. Australian writers, editors and illustrators are actively sought and well represented—whether published in Australia or overseas, approximately 92. 1% of the Librarys collection has been catalogued and is discoverable through the online catalogue. The Library has digitized over 174,000 items from its collection and, the Library is a world leader in digital preservation techniques, and maintains an Internet-accessible archive of selected Australian websites called the Pandora Archive. A core Australiana collection is that of John A. Ferguson, the Library has particular collection strengths in the performing arts, including dance. The Librarys considerable collections of general overseas and rare materials, as well as world-class Asian. The print collections are further supported by extensive microform holdings, the Library also maintains the National Reserve Braille Collection. The Library has acquired a number of important Western and Asian language scholarly collections from researchers, williams Collection The Asian Collections are searchable via the National Librarys catalogue. The National Library holds a collection of pictures and manuscripts. The manuscript collection contains about 26 million separate items, covering in excess of 10,492 meters of shelf space, the collection relates predominantly to Australia, but there are also important holdings relating to Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the Pacific. The collection also holds a number of European and Asian manuscript collections or single items have received as part of formed book collections. Examples are the papers of Alfred Deakin, Sir John Latham, Sir Keith Murdoch, Sir Hans Heysen, Sir John Monash, Vance Palmer and Nettie Palmer, A. D. Hope, Manning Clark, David Williamson, W. M. The Library has also acquired the records of many national non-governmental organisations and they include the records of the Federal Secretariats of the Liberal party, the A. L. P, the Democrats, the R. S. L. Finally, the Library holds about 37,000 reels of microfilm of manuscripts and archival records, mostly acquired overseas and predominantly of Australian, the National Librarys Pictures collection focuses on Australian people, places and events, from European exploration of the South Pacific to contemporary events. Art works and photographs are acquired primarily for their informational value, media represented in the collection include photographs, drawings, watercolours, oils, lithographs, engravings, etchings and sculpture/busts
10.
Tauchnitz publishers
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Tauchnitz was the name of a family of German printers and publishers. They published English language literature for distribution on the European continent outside Great Britain, Karl Christoph Traugott Tauchnitz, born at Grossbardau near Grimma, Saxony, established a printing business in Leipzig in 1796 and a publishing house in 1798. He specialized in the publication of dictionaries, Bibles, and stereotyped editions of the Greek and he was the first publisher to introduce stereotyping into Germany. The business was carried on by his son, Karl Christian Phillipp Tauchnitz, until 1865 and he left large sums to the city of Leipzig for philanthropic purposes. Christian Bernhard, Freiherr von Tauchnitz, the founder of the firm of Bernhard Tauchnitz, was the nephew of the first-mentioned, christians father died when he was young and his uncle played an important part in his development. His printing and publishing firm was started at Leipzig on February 1,1837, Bernhard started the Collection of British and American Authors in 1841, a reprint series familiar to anglophone travellers on the continent of Europe. These inexpensive paperbound editions, a precursor to mass-market paperbacks, were begun in 1841. In 1868 he began the Collection of German Authors, followed in 1886 by the Students Tauchnitz Editions, in fact the books were authorised by the authors or their representatives for Continental sale only. The authors were paid royalties even at a time when no copyright protection for English and that was Baron Tauchnitzs policy from the foundation of his company. In 1841, when Tauchnitz started his English-language editions, there were no copyright treaties between England or the United States and Continental countries, although Tauchnitzs editions were authorised, they were not protected from copyright infringement and he could offer none to the authors he paid. A few years later, various Continental States formed copyright treaties with Britain, Prussia and Saxony in 1846, France in 1852, in these countries, the Tauchnitz Authorised Edition became the Copyright Edition. Finally, the Berne Convention of 1886 conferred copyright upon authors in its fullest form over the part of the developed world. In 1860 he was ennobled with the title of Freiherr for his services to literature, from 1866 to 1895 he was British Consul-General for the kingdom and duchies of Saxony. Christian Bernhard was succeeded in the business by his son, Christian Karl Bernhard and he made a tour of Europe, stayed some time in England, and learned to speak and write English with barely a flaw. In 1866, he entered partnership with his father at his firm. The two authors who first attracted Tauchnitzs attention were Dickens and Lytton with the novels Pickwick Papers, twenty-two years later, in 1863, the five-hundredth title of the series was published under the title Five Centuries of the English Language and Literature. In 1869, an English-language edition of The New Testament, exhibiting the differences between the original Alexandrine, Sinaitic and Vatican manuscripts, was the one-thousandth title. It was dedicated by the Baron To my English and American Authors, as a Token of Esteem for the Living, by 1901,3,500 books had been published
11.
Charles Edward Mudie
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Charles Edward Mudie, English publisher and founder of Mudies Lending Library and Mudies Subscription Library, was the son of a second-hand bookseller and newsagent. He was also the first publisher of James Russell Lowells poems in England, Charles Edward Mudie was born in 1818 to Scottish parents in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. He received most of his education by assisting his father in his shop until he was twenty-two. In 1840, Mudie opened his first shop on Upper King Street, in 1842, he began to lend books to students at the University of London, charging subscribers one guinea per year for the right to borrow one volume of a novel at a time. Mudies soon had outlets on Cross Street in Manchester and on New Street in Birmingham, London book deliveries were carried out by vans, and the expansion of railroads and trains allowed people to order books across the country. International orders were issued and shipped abroad in tin boxes. Mudies also exported books using watertight boxes, some of which were reported to have survived shipwreck, Mudie was able to offer publishers advance purchase of three or four hundred copies of their new books and obtained corresponding discounts. The companys withdrawn books were offered for sale at £5 for a hundred volumes in 1860, Mudies demands that fiction novels be suited to the middle-class family controlled the morality, subject and scope of the novel for fifty years. His select books were chosen with these considerations in mind, once the Mudie Library considered a book unfit for its customers. George Moore criticized the moral and structural power the circulating library system had on literary distribution and his response to censorship was to issue a number of polemics against circulating libraries, the most popular being Literature at Nurse, or Circulating Morals. He confronted Mudie on why the librarian refused to sell A Modern Lover, Mudies response, Your book was considered immoral. Two ladies from the country wrote to me objecting to that scene where the girl sat to the artist as a model for Venus, after that I naturally refused to circulate your book, unIess any customer said he wanted particularly to read Mr. Moores novel. Mudie was also crucial in the success of scientific volumes – In November 1859 he bought 500 copies of the first publication of Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species, in fact, much of Darwins own reading was obtained from Mudies nonfiction collection. His five-guinea annual subscription allowed him to borrow a parcel of up to six recently published books a month, in 1864 Mudies was converted into a limited company. On August 18,1871, directors of Mudies Select Library controlled the English, Mudies library continued into the 1930s. The decline of Mudies eventually came as a result of the number of government-funded public libraries. Griest, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol.20, No, cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day. Mudies Library is mentioned in the H. G, I made off up the roadway to Bloomsbury Square, intending to strike north past the Museum and so get into the quiet district
Polard, Albert Frederick (1901). "Parr, Harriet". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
