The Last of the Mohicans [antikvár]

History of Collins In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary pubhshing can be traced back to the first dictionary WiUiam published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a hcence to print and publish the Bible. Soon after, William pubUshed the first Collins novel. Ready Reckoner, however it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed and violence was erupting in Ein-ope. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing. Aged 30, WilUam's son, William II took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly 'Victorian' in his outiook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare's works and Pilgrim's Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later pubUcation of atiases and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time. In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of 'books for the milhons' was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were pubUshed and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 tities in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year. The Everyman's Library was also instituted, wdth the idea of ¦ ! i