Sir H Rider Haggard

Mr. Meeson's Will Sir H Rider Haggard

Everybody who has any connection with Birmingham will be acquainted with the vast publishing establishment still known by the short title of "Meeson's," which is perhaps the most remarkable institution of the sort in Europe. There are-or rather there were, at the date of the beginning of this history-three partners in Meeson's-Meeson himself, the managing partner; Mr. Addison, and Mr. Roscoe-and people in Birmingham used to say that there were others interested in the affair, for Meeson's was a "company". However this may be, Meeson and Co. was undoubtedly a commercial marvel. It employed more than two thousand hands; and its works, lit throughout with the electric light, cover two acres and a quarter of land. One hundred commercial travellers, at three pounds a week and a commission, went forth east and west, and north and south, to sell the books of Meeson in all lands; and five-and-twenty tame authors sat-at salaries ranging from one to five hundred a year-in vault-like hutches in the basement, and week by week poured out that hat-work for which Meeson's was justly famous.