been heard of before and manuscripts flowed in, showing this to have been a happy thought.  It is interesting to look back and find many of those young authors to be identical with names that are now famous in art and literature, then presenting with much fear and trembling, their first efforts.

Mr. Lothrop considered no time, money, or strength ill-spent by which he could secure the wisest choice of manuscripts.  As an evidence of his success, we name a few out of his large list:  ’Miss Yonge’s Histories;’ ‘Spare Minute Series,’ most carefully edited from Gladstone, George MacDonald, Dean Stanley, Thomas Hughes, Charles Kingsley; ‘Stories of American History;’’ Lothrop’s Library of Entertaining History,’ edited by Arthur Gilman, containing Professor Harrison’s ‘Spain,’ Mrs. Clement’s ‘Egypt,’ ‘Switzerland,’ ‘India,’ etc.; ’Library of famous Americans, 1st and 2d series; George MacDonald’s novels—­Mr. Lothrop, while on a visit to Europe, having secured the latest novels by this author in manuscript, thus bringing them out in advance of any other publisher in this country or abroad, now issues his entire works in uniform style:  ‘Miss Yonge’s Historical Stories;’ ’Illustrated Wonders;’ The Pansy Books,’ of world-wide circulation;’ ’Natural History Stories;’ ‘Poet’s Homes Series;’ S.G.W.  Benjamin’s ‘American Artists;’ ‘The Reading Union Library,’ ’Business Boy’s Library,’ library edition of ‘The Odyssey,’ done in prose by Butcher and Lang; ‘Jowett’s Thucydides;’ ‘Rosetti’s Shakspeare,’ on which nothing has been spared to make it the most complete for students and family use, and many others.

Mr. Lothrop is constantly broadening his field in many directions, gathering the rich thought of many men of letters, science and theology among his publications.  Such writers as Professor James H. Harrison, Arthur Gilman, and Rev. E.E.  Hale are allies of the house, constantly working with it to the development of pure literature; the list of the authors and contributors being so long as to include representatives of all the finest thinkers of the day.  Elegant art gift books of poem, classic and romance, have been added with wise discrimination, until the list embraces sixteen hundred books, out of which last year were printed and sold 1,500,000 volumes.

The great fire of 1872 brought loss to Mr. Lothrop among the many who suffered.  Much of the hard-won earnings of years of toil was swept away in that terrible night.  About two weeks later, a large quantity of paper which had been destroyed during the great fire had been replaced, and the printing of the same was in process at the printing house of Rand, Avery & Co., when a fire broke out there, destroying this second lot of paper, intended for the first edition of sixteen volumes of the celebrated $1,000 prize books.  A third lot of paper was purchased for these books and sent to the Riverside Press without delay.  The books were at last printed, as many