Tom Brown -- publisher Laird and Lee

I plan to review the complete American publishing history of the two book Tom Brown series history in the future but thought I would point out a very interesting copy of one of the books that I received a couple of days ago. As you can imagine most of the editions are hardcover with a small percentage being in wraps. Here is a softcover copy published by Laird and Lee, a firm from Chicago.

This house was started in 1883 by Frederick Laird and William H. Lee. Its book list had numerous series of mysteries, juvenile books, dime novels such as the Pinkerton Detective Series, dictionaries, the works of Opie Read and William Thomes adventure stories. In 1894 Laird left and Lee continued on. By 1899 the house was the third largest publisher in Chicago.

What is much more interesting about Laird and Lee is where they sold many of their books. As a publishing house that was seen as a friend to labor and unions, their works were welcomed by railroad men. This contrasts to some other Chicago houses (Donohue Brothers, Geo. M. Hill and W.B. Conkey) who were actively boycotted against by unions (1901).


Over the years Laird and Lee had published a number of books about the "railroad". These and others of their books were sold by news dealers and "upon all trains". Imagine a railroad employee going up and down the aisles with books -many of which were Laird and Lee books. Note on the back of the book shown here there is an advertisement for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway.

This book published in 1892 was part of the multi authored Pastime Series. By 1896 there were 250 titles in this series.

Tom Brown in Parts-First Serialized Version

The two Tom Brown books (Tom Brown's Schooldays and Tom Brown at Oxford) written by Thomas Hughes (1822-1896) were two of the most popular and well read books of the second half of the nineteenth century. Initially both were published in England but their American reprints are ubiquitous. More than 50 publishers reprinted these two titles in numerous formats between the 1860's and 1900. The popularity probably stems from the realistic portrayal of school boy life in England.
The American first editions were published by Ticknor and Fields 1857 (Schooldays) and Ticknor and Fields 1861 (at Oxford)

Some of the reprints are quite commonly found whereas others are next to impossible to locate. Perhaps the most difficult to locate are the books in wraps and the paperback books. Of these, undoubtedly the scarcest is the serialized version of Tom Brown at Oxford that was published monthly in 17 parts by Ticknor and Fields between 1859 and 1861. These parts were the authorized reproduction of parts being published in England by MacMillan.

It would seem that each part should be relatively easy to obtain based on the number published. They are fragile enough for not many to have survived over the years.
Here are the publication number:
Parts I-II 2000 copies each
Parts III, IV, VI-XIII- 1500 copies
Parts V, XIV, XV -1000 copies
Parts XVI, XVII - 750 copies

Harper and Brothers published their pirated copy of this book from the Ticknor parts. Its first volume was published in 1860 and is the first American edition (at least in part) of this book.
The second volume of the book by Harpers was published after an agreement was reached with Ticknor. Ticknor and Fields published the 2 volume set of Tom Brown at Oxford in November 24, 1860 (Volume 1) and July 16, 1861 (Volume 2). Both books however had 1861 on the title page.

Pictured here are two of the 17 parts (Nos. III and VII). Although there are no insert ads like the typical parts seen in Dickens' works, there are ads on the back covers and after the text (in Part III) The booklets are small (7.25 x 4.5). Interestingly part VII ends in mid sentence -just like the Harper and Brothers pirated edition of Volume 1.