Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/109

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THE LONGMAN F4MILY. CLASSICAL AND EDUCATIONAL LITERATURE. n^HE family of Longman can trace a publishing

    • " pedigree back to a date anterior to that of any

other house still represented amongst us the Riving- tons only excepted. As in the previous chapter, we shall select one member necessarily that one to whom most public interest is attached -as the typical repre- sentative of the firm, touching lightly, however, upon all. And, in accordance with the scheme of the present volume, our remarks will primarily be devoted .to a narrative of their business connections with that branch of literature classical and educational works-^ with which the name of Longman is more immedi- ately associated. For the whole of the seventeenth century the Longman family occupied the position of thriving citizens in the busy seaport town of Bristol, then the Liverpool of the day, and acquired some considerable wealth in the manufacture of soap and sugar, achieving in many instances the highest honours in civic au- thority. Ezekiel Longman, who is described as "of Bristol, gentleman," died in the year 1708, leaving, by a second marriage, a little boy only nine years of