Seeley, Service was a British publishing firm. It was established in 1744Leo Cooper Archive (Publisher)
reading.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 November 2020. and ceased business over two centuries later, in 1979. During most of the twentieth century the "well established" Seeley, Service was second only to

Longman Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publisher, publishing company founded in London, England, in 1724 and is owned by Pearson PLC. Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman bra ...

as Britain's oldest active publishing firm. In 1886 it was described by ''The Publishers' Circular'' as having a reputation for "taste and elegance".

History of the firm

In 1744 Benton Seeley, a bookseller in

Stowe, Buckinghamshire Stowe is a civil parish and former village about northwest of Buckingham in the unitary authority area of Buckinghamshire, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Boycott, Dadford and Lamport. Stowe House is a Grade I listed country ...

published the first Seeley book: the ''Description of the Gardens of Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stow in Buckinghamshire''. The gardens, now known as

Stowe Gardens Stowe or Stowe Gardens, formerly Stowe Landscape Gardens, are extensive, Grade I listed gardens and parkland in Buckinghamshire, England. Largely created in the eighteenth century the gardens at Stowe are arguably the most significant example ...

, were "much visited and publicized" and had "enormous influence on

garden design Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. ...

, especially after experiments there in 'natural' gardening in the 1730s".STOWE: A DESCRIPTION OF THE MAGNIFICENT HOUSE AND GARDENS
gardenhistory.com. Retrieved 19 November 2020. The Seeley guide book went through several editions until a final edition of 1827 and did much to "spread the influence of Stowe as a model for the

English landscape garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...

". In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the firm published books in various fields including travel and religion (particularly on

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesu ...

). Robert Benton Seeley (1798–1886), a leading figure in the Church Influence Society, one of the founders of the Church Pastoral Aid Society and of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes, and a supporter of Shaftesbury's campaign for factory acts, operated the firm in the mid-19th century under the name of Seeley, Jackson and Halliday. His son was the historian and political essayist Sir

John Robert Seeley Sir John Robert Seeley, KCMG (10 September 1834 – 13 January 1895) was an English Liberal historian and political essayist. A founder of British imperial history, he was a prominent advocate for the British Empire, promoting a concept of G ...

. In the final decades of the nineteenth century Agnes Giberne's books of popular science were published by Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday and later by Seeley & Co., including ''Sun, Moon and Stars: Astronomy for Beginners'' (1879) which had sold 26,000 copies by 1903. In 1911 the firm's offerings were described as "high-class works of art, religious, educational, and general". In 1970 Seeley, Service merged with Leo Cooper Ltd., a firm which specialised in publishing "regimental histories, escape stories and war memoirs", to form Seeley, Service & Cooper, which then went into receivership in 1979 and was acquired by

Frederick Warne Frederick Warne (13 October 1825 – 17 November 1901) was a British publisher, founder of Frederick Warne & Co. Early life and career Warne was born in Westminster in 1825, sixth and youngest son of the twelve children of Edmund Warne, a builder ...

.Leo Cooper dies
''

The Bookseller ''The Bookseller'' is a British magazine reporting news on the publishing industry. Philip Jones is editor-in-chief of the weekly print edition of the magazine and the website. The magazine is home to the ''Bookseller''/Diagram Prize for Oddest ...

'', 3 December 2013. Retrieved 20 November 2020.

Changes of name and address

In the 1790s the firm published under the moniker of " T. N. Longman, L. B. Seeley" and in the first two decades of the nineteenth century as "L. B. Seeley and J. Hatchard" or as "J. Seeley". In the 1840s the firm was publishing as "Seeley, Burnside, Seeley" and from the 1840s until the 1880s as "Seeley, Jackson & Halliday". From the 1890s the firm published as "Seeley and Co.". From around 1912 the firm published under the name of "Seeley, Service & Co. Limited". In 1849 the firm's office was located at Fleet Street, and Hanover Street, London. In the 1880s and 1890s the office was in Essex Street, Strand, from 1910 at 12 Russell Street, and in 1927 at 126 Shaftsbury Avenue, London.

''Flatland''

'' Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions'', a satirical

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

novella by A Square (pseudonym of Edwin Abbott Abbott), was first published by Seeley & Co. in 1884. It received a number of reviews but was not a financial success. The novella was rediscovered in the 1920s after

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

's general theory of relativity was published and popularized the concept of the fourth dimension, which led in turn to an interest to the role of the

fourth dimension Fourth dimension may refer to: Science * Time in physics, the continued progress of existence and events * Four-dimensional space, the concept of a fourth spatial dimension * Spacetime, the unification of time and space as a four-dimensional con ...

in literature. A letter to the editor of ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...

'' on 12 February 1920 argued: "Some thirty or more years ago a little '' jeu d'esprit'' was written by Dr. Edwin Abbott entitled Flatland. At the time of its publication it did not attract as much attention as it deserved." In recent years a number of adaptations and parodies of ''Flatland'' have appeared in film and in literature, including '' Flatland (2007 film)'' (2007) and '' Flatland: The Movie'' (2007).

The Lonsdale Library

The Lonsdale Library of

Sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

Games A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (su ...

and Pastimes was series of sports books launched in 1929 under the editorship of the English peer and sportsman, Hugh Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale, and which featured "many notable contributors from their respective fields". Sir Theodore Cook helped plan the series before he died in 1928. Books in this series received high praise, such as ''The Game of Cricket'' which '' The Field'' predicted would be the "standard work on cricket for some years to come"

Other book series

* Beaufort Library Series * "Children's Friend" Series * The Christian's Family Library * The Church Historians of England * The Church Missionary Juvenile Instructor * The Christian's Family Library * The Crown LibraryPublisher's advertisement in final pages of: William Henry Collison,
In the Wake of the War Canoe...
', London: Seeley, Service & Co., 1915. Retrieved 20 November 2020. * The Elzevir Library * The English Scene * "Events of Our Own Time" Series * Events of our Time * Heroes of the World Library * The Illustrated Scarlet Library * The Imperial Services Library * The Library of Christian Biography * The Library of Adventure * The Library of Romance * Missionary Library for Boys and Girls * Modern Sports Series * The New Art Library * The New Library * The Portfolio Monographs (''also known as:'' Portfolio Monographs on Artistic Subjects; Portfolio Artistic Monographs) * Remarkable Missionary Books * Science for Children * Science of To-day Series * Seeley's Cheap School Books * Seeley's First Lesson Books * Seeley Service War Fiction series * Studies in Modern Music * Things Seen SeriesPreliminary pages of: E. Grierson,
Things Seen in Florence
', London: Seeley, Service & Co., 1922. Retrieved 20 November 2020. * "Tottie's Treasure" Series * Ullswater Library Series * The Week-end Library * Wonder Library * A World Atlas of Military History

References

External links

{{wikisource, Portal:Seeley, Service and Company, Limited
Books published by Seeley, Service; Seeley & Co.; etc.
on

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and s ...

Seeley, Service: Publisher – 183 works / 64 ebooks published between 1800 & 2009
Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom Publishing companies established in the 1740s Publishing companies disestablished in 1979