Thomas Bird Mosher

Book excerpt: This study describes the books produced by one of America's most controversial publishers, Thomas Bird Mosher, whose editions helped disseminate British literature and design to the American public. Variously described as literary pirate by some yet praised as prince of publishers by others, Mosher's passion for literary texts led him to reprint books without the author's permission, though he often paid royalties. Mosher never technically broke any copyright laws, and many authors defended him for assisting in introducing the American public to authors such as William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Pater, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, George Meredith, Robert Browning and George Gissing in affordable editions. The designs of Blake, Rossetti, Pissarro, Strang, Morris and MacMurdo and presses such as the Vale, Chiswick and Kelmscott also appeared in The Mosher Books.