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Ticknor and Fields

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Ticknor and Fields
Ticknor and Fields colophon,c. 1867
StatusDefunct
Founded1832
FounderWilliam Davis Ticknorand John Allen
SuccessorHoughton Mifflin
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters locationBoston
Key peopleJames T. Fields,James R. Osgood
Publication typesBooks, Magazines

Ticknor and Fieldswas an American publishing company based inBoston,Massachusetts. Founded as a bookstore in 1832, the business published many 19th-century American authors, includingRalph Waldo Emerson,Nathaniel Hawthorne,Henry James,Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,Harriet Beecher Stowe,Henry David Thoreau,andMark Twain.It also became an early publisher ofThe Atlantic MonthlyandNorth American Review.

The firm was named after founderWilliam Davis Ticknorand apprenticeJames T. Fields,although the names of additional business partners would come and go, notably that ofJames R. Osgoodin the firm's later years. Financial problems led Osgood to merge the company with the publishing firm ofHenry Oscar Houghtonin 1878, forming a precursor to the modern publisherHoughton Mifflin Harcourt.

Houghton Mifflin revived the Ticknor and Fields name as an imprint from 1979 to 1989.

Company history

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Early years

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James Fields, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Ticknor; photo byJ.W. Black,ca.1863

In 1832William Davis Ticknorand John Allen began a small bookselling business calledTicknor and Allenwhich operated out of theOld Corner Bookstorelocated on Washington and School streets in Boston, Massachusetts. The space had previously been used by publishers Carter & Hendee, who hired a teenagedJames T. Fieldsas an apprentice. When Ticknor and Allen began their business, Fields joined them. A year later, Allen withdrew from the firm, and Ticknor continued business underWilliam D. Ticknor and Company.When John Reed and Fields became partners in 1845, the imprint was changed toTicknor, Reed, and Fields.Reed retired in 1854 and the imprint was renamed as Ticknor and Fields, which became well known.

During these years the firm purchased and printed theAtlantic Monthlyand theNorth American Review.Also in 1842 Ticknor became the first American publisher to pay foreign writers for their works, beginning with a check toAlfred Tennyson.These were prosperous years for the firm, and they compiled an impressive list of authors,Horatio Alger,Lydia Maria Child,Charles Dickens,Ralph Waldo Emerson,Nathaniel Hawthorne,Oliver Wendell Holmes,Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,James Russell Lowell,Harriet Beecher Stowe,Alfred Tennyson,Henry David Thoreau,Mark Twain,andJohn Greenleaf Whittier.TheOld Corner Bookstorehad become the publishing house and meeting place for these authors. Many writers visited many times a week;George William Curtisreferred to it as "the hub of the Hub", referring to Boston's nickname, and said that it "compelled the world to acknowledge that there was an American literature".[1]

The success of the firm was largely in part to the perfectly matched but widely varied talents of Ticknor and Fields. Ticknor gave his attention to the financial and manufacturing departments while Fields focused on literary relations and social aspects of the business. It was also during these years that Ticknor and Fields developed a close relationship with the Riverside Press, founded byHenry Oscar Houghtonin 1852.

After Ticknor

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Ticknor & Fields office, 124Tremont Street,Boston, ca.1868; located across from thePark Street Church[2]

In the spring of 1864, Ticknor accompanied Nathaniel Hawthorne on a trip to restore the author's health, at the urging of his wifeSophia Hawthorne.[3]During the trip, Ticknor became ill withpneumonia.[4]Hawthorne wrote to Fields that "our friend Ticknor is suffering under a billious attack... He had previously seemed uncomfortable, but not to an alarming degree."[5]Ticknor died on the morning of April 10, 1864.[6]

Upon Ticknor's sudden and unexpected death, interests in the firm were carried on by his son Howard M. Ticknor. During these years the business had outgrown theOld Corner Bookstoreand Fields, now in charge of the company, was no longer interested in the retail store. He sold the Old Corner Bookstore on November 12, 1864, and moved the publishing house to 124 Tremont Street.[7]The firm also began to publishOur Young Folksedited by Howard M. Ticknor. The younger Ticknor soon retired and, in 1868, the firm was reorganized asFields, Osgood, & Co.[8]Benjamin Holt Ticknor, son of William Davis Ticknor, was admitted at a partner in 1870. On New Year's Day, 1871, Fields announced his retirement from the business at a small gathering of friends,[9]intending to focus on his own writing. On January 2, 1871, the remaining partners bought out Fields's share of the company for $120,000 and it was renamedJames R. Osgood & Co.[8]

Osgood,who considered Fields a mentor, attracted substantial new talent and published new works byThomas Bailey Aldrich,Bret Harte,William Dean Howells,Henry James,Sarah Orne Jewett,Lucy Larcom,Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward,Celia Thaxter,andCharles Dudley Warner.[10]

Final years

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The firm invested inheliotypeprinting technology, various periodicals, and established a New York office.[10]Within a few years, the company was in financial difficulty and Osgood and B. H. Ticknor were forced to sell off various assets, including manystereotype plates.[citation needed]By December 1878, they were forced to merge with Hurd & Houghton and became Houghton, Osgood, and Co.[8]Henry Oscar Houghtonbecame a partner in the deal. The partnership lasted until 1880, when Osgood left to form a second J. R. Osgood and Company. Houghton's company, now Houghton, Mifflin, and Co, retained the rights to the Tickner and Fields backlist. The second J. R. Osgood and Co. was taken over by Benjamin Holt Ticknor in 1885 under the name Ticknor and Company, based (by the first quarter of 1890) at 211 Tremont Street.[11]Ticknor and Company operated until 1889 when it became part of Houghton, Mifflin, and Co. In 1908 the name was changed toHoughton Mifflin Company.

Twentieth-century revival

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In 1979, Houghton Mifflin revived the Ticknor and Fields name as an imprint. Chester Kerr was the editor from its reestablishment to 1984; Corlies Smith followed him from 1984 to 1989.[12][13]

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Notes

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  1. ^Felton, R. Todd.A Journey into the Transcendentalists' New England.Berkeley, California: Roaring Forties Press, 2006: 28.ISBN0-9766706-4-X
  2. ^Boston Directory. 1868
  3. ^McFarland, Philip.Hawthorne in Concord.New York: Grove Press, 2004: 288.ISBN0-8021-1776-7
  4. ^Wineapple, Brenda.Hawthorne: A Life.New York: Random House, 2003: 371.ISBN0-8129-7291-0
  5. ^McFarland, Philip.Hawthorne in Concord.New York: Grove Press, 2004: 290.ISBN0-8021-1776-7
  6. ^Wineapple, Brenda.Hawthorne: A Life.New York: Random House, 2003: 372.ISBN0-8129-7291-0
  7. ^Tryon, Warren S.Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields, Publisher to the Victorians.Cambridge, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1963: 279.
  8. ^abcWinship, Michael.American Literary Publishing in the Mid-nineteenth Century: The Business of Ticknor and Fields.Cambridge University Press, 2003: 22.ISBN978-0-521-52666-1
  9. ^Tryon, Warren S.Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields, Publisher to the Victorians.Cambridge, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1963: 361.
  10. ^abWinship, Michael.American Literary Publishing in the Mid-nineteenth Century: The Business of Ticknor and Fields.Cambridge University Press, 2003: 23.ISBN978-0-521-52666-1
  11. ^"The Project Gutenberg eBook of The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 732, by Various."–Project Gutenberg
  12. ^Mills, Theodora (1986)."Ticknor and Fields".In Peter Dzwonkoski (ed.).American literary publishing houses, 1900-1980. Trade and paperback.Dictionary of literary biography. Detroit, Mich: Gale Research Co. pp.357.ISBN978-0-8103-1724-6.
  13. ^McGrath, Charles (2004-11-24)."Corlies Smith, Editor of All-Star Authors, Dies at 75".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Retrieved2018-05-16.

Further reading

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  • Fiske, John. (1889).Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography,New York: D. Appleton and Company
  • Ticknor, Caroline.(1913).Hawthorne and His Publisher,Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company – via the Internet Archive
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Wikimedia Commons has media related toTicknor and Fields.
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