A fascinating compendium on 19th century publishing, bookselling, and authorship. Its author, J.C. Derby witnessed the golden years of American publishing. Fifty Years Among Authors, Books and Publishers includes separate chapters on every major publishing house in America (Ticknor & Fields, Lee & Shepard, Wiley & Putnam, Harper & Brothers, Little-Brown, Redfield, Appleton, Bancroft, Lippincott, Scribner, Lossing, Goodrich, Carleton), their leaders, and their authors -- including Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Poe. The book also includes previously unpublished texts of some Poe and Hawthorne letters and separate chapters on Southern writers and early American humorists. There are first-hand accounts of Thomas B. Aldrich, Appleton & Co., William Cullen. Bryant, Alice & Phoebe Cary, John E. Cooke, Jefferson Davis, Horace Greeley, Harper & Brothers, Joel C. Harris, J. B. Lippincott, Williamm Seward, Alexander H. Stephens, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, among others.