NSW Bookstall Company was a Sydney company which operated a chain of newsagencies throughout New South Wales. It was notable as a publisher of inexpensive paperback books which were written, illustrated, published and printed in Australia, and sold to commuters at bookstalls in railway stations and elsewhere in New South Wales.
The company was founded as the Sydney Bookstall Company by Henry Lloyd (ca.1847 – 24 September 1897) of "Linden Hall", Annandale, New South Wales around 1880 as a newsagent. Its first foray into publishing may have been racebooks (form guides or programmes) for the Hawkesbury Race Club around 1886. [1] Over its lifetime, the NSW Bookstall company published over 350 titles with over 1000 reprints, with total sales of over five million copies. [2] [3]
A. C. Rowlandson (15 June 1865 – 15 June 1922) joined as a tram ticket seller in 1883 and built a strong interest in the business, which he bought from Henry Lloyd's widow. The greatest part of the company's business consisted of retailing local, interstate and overseas periodicals, postcards (Neville Cayley produced a series) and stationery from its eight city shops and fifty-odd railway stall outlets, but was important as one of Australia's most successful book publishers and retailers of locally produced paperback books. [4] [5] [6]
Considerable effort was put into the artwork of the paperbacks, both on their brightly colored covers and the illustrations within. Artists who contributed included J. Muir Auld, Percy Benison, L. H. Booth, Norman Carter, H. W. Cotton, John P. Davis, Ambrose Dyson, Will Dyson, Tom Ferry, A. J. Fischer (often "Fisher"), Harry Garlick, C. H. Hunt, Ben Jordan, Harry Julius, George W. Lambert, Fred Leist, Norman Lindsay, Lionel Lindsay Percy Lindsay, Ruby Lindsay, Vernon Lorimer, David Low, Hugh Maclean, Frank P. Mahony, Claude Marquet, R. H. Moppett, Charles Nuttall, G. C. Pearce, James Postlethwaite, L. L. Roush, James F. Scott, Sydney Ure Smith, D. H. Souter, Percy Spence, Martin Stainforth, Alf Vincent and Harry J. Weston. [3] [7]
The University of Sydney Library has 153 of the original artworks used in the NSW Bookstall Company's publications, including cover artworks and illustrations. [7] [8] The State Library of New South Wales holds the company records from 1909-1938. [9]
On Rowlandson's death, Reg. Wynn (ca.1866 – 17 December 1925) took over as managing director, and W. A. Crew was circulation manager. [10] The company erected a large building at the corner of Market Street and Castlereagh Street. [3] Reg. Wynn was succeeded by Paul Dowling.
With the onset of World War II, imports of comic books was severely restricted, which opened the market, previously swamped by the U.S. and British houses, to anyone who could provide a quality product, and the NSW Bookstall Company was ideally placed to publish and distribute such work. Tony Rafty, Will Donald, Tom Hubble, Noel Cook and Terry Powis were among the more successful artists, and the partnership of Brodie Mack and writer Peter Amos (real name Archie E. Martin) produced some excellent work for the NSW Bookstall Company. [11] By 1949, the opportunity provided by wartime shortages no longer applied, and Australia was once again flooded with excess overseas production. Between 1957 and early 1958 the Company's assets had been sold. [2]
This list of titles of the range of NSW Bookstall titles, which is commonly referred as The Bookstall Series, [12] is representative but not exhaustive. [3]
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Alfred Cecil Rowlandson, generally referred to as A. C. Rowlandson, was an Australian publisher and bookseller.
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