The Thomas Bird Mosher Books

Item

Identifier: SESC-0000-TBM

Staff Only

Abstract

A collection of limited edition monographs privately published by Thomas Bird Mosher of Portland, Maine.

Dates

Publication: tbd

Conditions Governing Access

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Conditions Governing Use

Photocopies or scans made of archival materials are intended for private research and permission to create these reproductions should not be taken as permission to publish. All responsibility for possible infringement of copyright law as a result of reproduction and use of these materials is assumed by the applicant. The researcher assumes full responsibility for complying with laws of libel and literary property rights which may be involved in their use. The Munday Library, at its discretion, may deny duplication of materials known to be covered by copyright that it does not own. Requests for permission to publish should be sent to archives@stedwards.edu

Biographical / Historical

Thomas Bird Mosher made tremendous contributions to the private press movement in the United States. He was a major exponent of the British Pre-Raphaelites and Aesthetes as well as other British Victorians.

In 1891, Mosher published his first book, a poem titled Modern Love by George Meredith, without the author's knowledge or permission. The next year he published James Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night, and the year after that, 1893, he published two books, including his first anthology, Songs of Adieu. In 1894, two more books and the first of his well-known catalogs came out, and 1895 saw a further 8 titles and the first issue of The Bibelot. Thus by 1895, he had published 16 books, and decided to sell his stationery business and publish full-time.

By the end of Mosher’s publishing program in 1923 there would be 384 titles, 338 reprints of those editions, and 61 “privately printed” books for a total of 783 books grouped into fourteen different series, all limited editions, covering his favorite authors including William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Fiona Macleod (William Sharp), Robert Louis Stevenson, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Richard Jeffries, Vernon Lee (Violet Paget), Edward FitzGerald, Walt Whitman, Andrew Lang, George Meredith, John Addington Symons, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, Maurice Hewlett, Francis Thompson, Marcel Schwob, J. W. Mackail, Ernest Dowson, John Ruskin, George Gissing, William Butler Yeats, Richard Burton, and others.

The Bibelot was a yearly literary anthology Mosher published between 1895 and 1914. The Bibelot featured the lesser known works of writers such as Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Morris, Arthur Symons, D. G. Rossetti, Austin Dobson, J. A. Symonds, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, and Fiona MacLeod. In 1925 a limited edition, 21 volume "Testimonial Edition" was printed by William H. Wise and Co..