Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also used for the Longman Schools in China and the Longman Dictionary.
History
Beginnings
Thomas Longman
The Longman company was founded by Thomas Longman (1699 – 18 June 1755), the son of Ezekiel Longman (died 1708), a gentleman of Bristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller, and at the expiration of his apprenticeship married Osborn's daughter. In August 1724, he purchased the stock and household goods of William Taylor, the first publisher of Robinson Crusoe, for £22829s6d. Taylor's two shops in Paternoster Row, London, were known respectively as the Black Swan and the Ship,[1] premises at that time having signs rather than numbers, and became the publishing house premises.[citation needed]
Longman entered into partnership with his father-in-law, Osborn, who held one-sixth of the shares in Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia (1728). Longman himself was one of the six booksellers, who undertook the responsibility of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1746–1755).[1]
Second and third generations
In 1754, Longman took into partnership his nephew, Thomas Longman (1730–1797), and the title of the firm became T. and T. Longman. Upon the death of his uncle in 1755, Longman became sole proprietor. He greatly extended the colonial trade of the firm. In 1794, he took Owen Rees as a partner;[1][2] in the same year, Thomas Brown (c. 1777–1869) entered the house as an apprentice.[1]
Longman had three sons. Of these, Thomas Norton Longman (1771–1842) succeeded to the business. In 1804, two more partners, including Edward Orme & Thomas Hurst, were admitted, and the former apprentice Brown became a partner in 1811; in 1824, the title of the firm was changed to 'Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green'. A document of 1823 "Grant of Land in the Concan" printed by the firm under this name shows the name change was from 1823 or earlier.
In 1799, Longman purchased the copyright of Lindley Murray's English Grammar, which had an annual sale of about 50000 copies.[1] In the following year, Richmal Mangnall's Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People was purchased, and went through 84 editions by 1857.[3] About 1800 he also purchased the copyright of Southey's Joan of Arc and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, from Joseph Cottle of Bristol. He published the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and Scott, and acted as London agent for the Edinburgh Review, which was started in 1802.[1] In 1802 appeared the first part of Rees's Cyclopædia, edited by Abraham Rees. This was completed in 39 volumes plus 6 volumes of plates in 1819.[4]
In 1814 arrangements were made with Thomas Moore for the publication of Laila Rookh, for which he was paid £3000; and when Archibald Constable failed in 1826, Longmans became the proprietors of the Edinburgh Review. They issued in 1829 Lardner's Cabinet Encyclopaedia, and in 1832 McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary.[1]
Fourth and fifth generations
Thomas Norton Longman died on 29 August 1842, leaving his two sons, Thomas (1804–1879) and William (1813–1877), in control of the business in Paternoster Row. Their first success was the publication of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, which was followed in 1841 by the issue of the first two volumes of his History of England, which after a few years had a sale of 40000 copies.[1]
Thomas Norton Longman (1849–1930)
The two brothers were well known for their literary talent. Thomas Longman edited a beautifully illustrated edition of the New Testament, and William Longman was the author of several important books, among them a History of the Three Cathedrals dedicated to St Paul (1869) and a work on the History of the Life and Times of Edward III (1873). In 1863, the firm took over the business of John William Parker, and with it Fraser's Magazine, and the publication of the works of John Stuart Mill and James Anthony Froude; while in 1890 they incorporated with their own all the publications of the old firm of Rivington, established in 1711.[5] The family control of the firm (later 'Longmans, Green & Co.') was continued by Thomas Norton Longman, son of Thomas Longman.[1] In 1884 the firm employed John William Allen as an educationalist. Allen grew the firm's educational list, including textbooks he wrote himself. He later inherited the shares of W. E. Green and became a shareholder in 1918.
In December 1940, Longman's Paternoster Row offices were destroyed[6] in The Blitz, along with most of the company's stock. The company survived this crisis, however, and became a public company in 1948.[7] Longman was acquired by the global publisher Pearson, owner of Penguin and The Financial Times, in 1968. Longman's medical lists was merged with other Pearson subsidiaries to form Churchill Livingstone in 1972. Also in 1972, Mark Longman, last of the Longman family to run the company, died.[8]
Longman continued to exist as an imprint of Pearson, under the name 'Pearson Longman'. Pearson Longman specialized in English, including English as a second or foreign language, history, economics, philosophy, political science, and religion.
Longman is now primarily used by Pearson's ELT business (English Language Teaching). The Longman brand is now only used for the Longman Schools in China and oddments such as the Longman Dictionary and Kennedy's Revised Latin Primer. All other textbooks and products use the Pearson brand/imprint.
William Coxe was an English historian and priest who served as a travelling companion and tutor to nobility from 1771 to 1786. He wrote numerous historical works and travel chronicles. Ordained a deacon in 1771, he served as a rector and then archdeacon of Bemerton near Salisbury from 1786 until his death.
Châtelain was originally the French title for the keeper of a castle.
In music, a ditone is the interval of a major third. The size of a ditone varies according to the sizes of the two tones of which it is compounded. The largest is the Pythagorean ditone, with a ratio of 81:64, also called a comma-redundant major third; the smallest is the interval with a ratio of 100:81, also called a comma-deficient major third.
Rees's Cyclopædia, in full The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, was an important 19th-century British encyclopaedia edited by Rev. Abraham Rees (1743–1825), a Presbyterian minister and scholar who had edited previous editions of Chambers's Cyclopædia.
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Thomas Aikenhead was a Scottish student from Edinburgh, who was prosecuted and executed at the age of 20, on a charge of blasphemy under the Act against Blasphemy 1661 and Act against Blasphemy 1695. He was the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy. His execution occurred 85 years after the death of Edward Wightman (1612), the last person to be burned at the stake for heresy in England.
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Anthologion, or Anthologue, is a breviary that has been in use among the Greeks.
William Miller was a Scottish Quaker line engraver and watercolourist from Edinburgh.
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Paternoster Row is a street in the City of London that was a centre of the London publishing trade, with booksellers operating from the street. Paternoster Row was described as "almost synonymous" with the book trade. It was part of an area called St Paul's Churchyard. In time Paternoster Row itself was used inclusively of various alleys, courts and side streets.
This is a bibliography of works by Mary Shelley, the British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish Percy Shelley's works and for Frankenstein. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley’s achievements, however. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826), and her final two novels, Lodore (1835) and Falkner (1837). Studies of her lesser-known works such as the travel book Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–46) support the growing view that Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Mary Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and Enlightenment political theories.
The Keepsake was an English literary annual which ran from 1828 to 1857, published each Christmas from 1827 to 1856, for perusal during the year of the title. Like other literary annuals, The Keepsake was an anthology of short fiction, poetry, essays, and engraved illustrations. It was a gift book designed to appeal to young women, and was distinctive for its binding of scarlet dress silk and the quality of its illustrations. Although the literature in The Keepsake and other annuals is often regarded as second-rate, many of the contributors to The Keepsake are canonical authors of the Romantic period.
Thomas Longman was an English publisher who founded the publishing house of Longman.
Francesco Saverio Quadrio was an Italian scholar, historian, and writer. His most famous work is Della storia e della ragione di ogni poesia, a voluminous history of poetry, theatre, and music. It is considered the earliest attempt to produce a universal literary encyclopedia.
Philip Rundell (1746–1827) was a highly prosperous English jeweller, fine jewellery retailer and master jewellery makers' business proprietor, known for his association with royalty. With John Bridge, he ran and co-owned Rundell and Bridge, a firm with widespread interests in the jewellery and precious metal trades.
Anthony Hamilton (1739–1812) was an Anglican priest, Archdeacon of Colchester from 1775.
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Thomas Norton Longman (1771–1842) was an English publisher, who succeeded to the Longman's publishing business in 1793.
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