John Dicks (publisher)

John Thomas Dicks (1818–1881) was a publisher in London in the 19th century. He issued popular, affordably priced fiction and drama, such as "shilling Shakespeares and wonderfully cheap reprints of Scott and other standard authors."[1] Earlier in his career he worked with Peter Perring Thoms and George W. M. Reynolds.[1] Employees included illustrator Frederick Gilbert.[2] Readers included Thomas Burt and Havelock Ellis.[3] Dicks retired in the 1870s, when his sons took over the firm[4] which continued into the 1960s.[5][6]

Cover of Cottin's Elizabeth or the Exiles of Siberia, published by John Dicks, Strand, London, circa 1880s.

Works issued by John Dicks

• Musical Treasures (sheet music series); numbered list

Drama

• The British drama: illustrated, 1–4, John Dicks, 1864–66
• Dicks' British Drama, 1866–, 1866 (series)

Dicks' Standard Plays

• Dicks' Standard Plays, 1874–1907 (series)[6]
• List of Dicks' Standard Plays and Free Acting Drama, 1883, OL 7225611M – arranged by number, title, author (Ainsworth, Dickens, Lytton, Scott, etc.), and theme (nautical, dumb hero, ghost, Irish, Scotch, military, temperance, fairy, equestrian, etc.)

List of Dicks' Standard Plays

Number	Title	Author	Image	Fulltext
10	Iron Chest	George Colman	Cover
14	Honeymoon	John Tobin		Internet Archive
354	Alice Gray, the suspected one	John T. Haines		HathiTrust
368	Factory Assassin [7]
388	Bleak House	George Lander, adapted from Charles Dickens [8]
398	Old Curiosity Shop	George Lander, adapted from Charles Dickens [8]
400	Jane Eyre		Cover
409	Culprit; and, The boarding school			HathiTrust
460	Black Doctor [9]	Ira Aldridge
465	St. Patrick's Day	Richard Brinsley Sheridan		Internet Archive
469	Nicholas Nickleby	H. Simms, adapted from Charles Dickens [8]
485	Yew tree ruins	John Thomas Haines	Cover	Hathi Trust
561	Pic-Nic and The Railway Hotel			Google Books
571	Infant Phenomenon [10]	H. Horncastle, adapted from Charles Dickens [8]
571	Captain Cuttle [10]	John Brougham [8]
626	Jane, the Licensed Victualler's Daughter	J.P. Hart
636	Bardell & Pickwick [10]	Adapted from Charles Dickens [8]
641	Factory Boy [7]	John Thomas Haines
666	Bringing Home the Bride			Google Books
669	Angeline			Google Books
671	Noyades			Google Books
673	Love, Law and Physic			Google Books
790	Factory Strike [7]	G.F. Taylor
809	Lesson for Ladies	John Baldwin Buckstone		HathiTrust
898	Court Beauties	James Planché
930	Factory Lad [7]	John Walker
1001	Battle of Life [10]	Adapted from Charles Dickens
1004	Nine too many	J.B. Buckstone		HathiTrust
1004	Wigwam	Shirley Brooks		HathiTrust
1052	No Thoroughfare [11]

Fiction

• George W. M. Reynolds. Mysteries of the Court of London.
• Dicks' English Novels (series);[12] numbered list
• Dicks' English Library of Standard Works (series).[12]
  • Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, v.33 (via British Library on Flickr)
  • WorldCat. Dicks' English Library of Standard Works (series)
• Dicks' Celebrated Works (series); numbered list

Periodicals

Bow Bells, 1866 (with illustration of "Mangold in the fangs of the lion")

• Bow Bells: A Weekly Magazine of General Literature and Art, 1862, pp. 83 v – authors included George Manville Fenn, George Augustus Sala[13]
  • Fashion plate, 1865
  • Fashion plates, 1870s
• Reynolds' Miscellany[12]
• Halfpenny Gazette, 1861–1865[4]
• Every Week, 1869–1896[4]
• Penny Illustrated Weekly News
• Fiction, edited by Eliza Winstanley – weekly

Catalogues

• Shakespeare, William (c. 1860s), List of Books Published by John Dicks
• John Dicks' Catalogue, 1874, OCLC 500243028

References

1. "Obituary", The Bookseller, 3 March 1881
2. "Frederick Gilbert". Yesterday's Papers (blog). 2010. Retrieved July 4, 2014.
3. Richard D. Altick (1958). "From Aldine to Everyman: Cheap Reprint Series of the English Classics 1830-1906". Studies in Bibliography. 11: 3–24. JSTOR 40371227.
4. Christopher Mark Banham (2009). "John Dicks". In Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor (ed.). Dictionary of Nineteenth-century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland. Academia Press. ISBN 978-90-382-1340-8.
5. Literary Year-Book. G. Routledge and Sons. 1915.
6. Department of Early Printed Books (2012). "Dicks' Standard Plays". Tales of Mystery and Pagination (blog). Dublin: Trinity College Library. Retrieved July 4, 2014.
7. Sally Vernon (1977). "Trouble up at t'Mill: The Rise and Decline of the Factory Play in the 1830s and 1840s". Victorian Studies. 20 (2): 117–139. JSTOR 3826152.
8. Frederic George Kitton (1886). Dickensiana: a bibliography of the literature relating to Charles Dickens and his writings. G. Redway.
9. Bernth Lindfors (2007). Ira Aldridge, the African Roscius. University Rochester Press. ISBN 978-1-58046-258-7.
10. "Dramatized Works of Charles Dickens", List of Dicks' Standard Plays, 1883
11. "Wilkie Collins". Victorian Web. Retrieved July 4, 2014.
12. Victor E. Neuburg (2013) [1977]. "1800–1897". Popular Literature: A History and Guide. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-89434-3.
13. Michael Ashley; William Contento (1995). The Supernatural Index: A Listing of Fantasy, Supernatural, Occult, Weird, and Horror Anthologies. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-24030-0.

Further reading

• Guy Dicks (2006). The John Dicks Press. Lulu.com. ISBN 978-1-4116-4285-0.
• "Dicks, John Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Modern English Biography. 2 (supplement). 1908.
• British Publishing Houses: 1820–1880. 1991.
• Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals
• "Death of Mr. John Thomas Dicks", Reynolds's Newspaper, 13 February 1881
• "John Dicks, Publisher", Times Literary Supplement, 7 November 1942

External links

• Andrew King (August 25, 2013). "John Dicks, Publisher, and 'Dicks' English Library of Standard Works'". Greenwich English Prof (blog).
• Marie Léger-St-Jean. "Publisher: John Thomas Dicks". Price One Penny: Cheap Literature, 1837–1860. University of Cambridge.