Another of the leading features of the trade was the immense sale of Birthday Books, from Shakespeare to Tennyson. Every poet with a reputation had a compilation made from his writings for which there was always a receptive public. One of the most fascinating and lasting of juvenile books popular at this time was "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." The larger part of the first edition of this book was sold to an American publisher so that a second edition could be quickly announced; that was probably a wise policy and helped to draw attention to the value of the book.
During this and the following years, many authors had great reputations which to-day have almost ceased. The books of most of them have long been out of print, and are almost forgotten except by those who lived during the middle of the nineteenth century. I would instance "A.L.O.E.," who had some fifty books in circulation, the author of "Mary Powell," who issued some twenty-four popular stories, the Rev. J.C. Ryle, Hugh Miller, Mrs. Webb, William and Mary Howitt, Artemus Ward, Mrs. Sewell, R.M. Ballantyne, Samuel Smiles, Miss Yonge, James Grant, Mayne Reid, John Timbs, S. Baring-Gould, Mrs. Carey Brock, Mrs. Gatty, and many others. Some of the novelists who have come to stay had at this period very large sales. Among them, of course, were Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, C. Kingsley, Miss Braddon, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and others who, I think, laid a foundation which was very helpful to our later novelists; but it is quite a question whether a new departure is not now developing and that the novel of to-day deals more particularly with the practical events of everyday life and the effect they have upon the moral and spiritual development of the nation.
When Paternoster Square took the place of Newgate Market in 1872, it was quite anticipated that this position would be occupied entirely by publishers and thus form a centre for the trade, but at present this hope has not been realized. During these years great changes took place in Paternoster Row, many of the old buildings giving place to new ones of greater architectural beauty. The following houses are at the present time examples of the improvements which took place by rebuilding: Longmans, Blackwoods, Nelsons, Aldine Chambers. Other changes and improvements are in progress to-day. The Oxford University Press took over the business of the Oxford Bible Warehouse, with what success may be judged by its palatial buildings and business in Amen Corner and Ave Maria Lane, to which it moved in 1883.