CHATTERBOX COVERS

R. Worthington – New York

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Richard Worthington, a bit of a rogue ?

Richard Worthington was one of a small group of American publishers who re-printed the Chatterbox without permission during the 1880’s. A native Englishman, he began in the book business as an importer of books from England. By 1883 he was publishing his own books.

He advertised at prices higher than the actual price so people thought they were getting a deal.

In 1884 he purchased all the clothbound books of John Lovell Co. except the "Lovell Library" series, thereby acquiring sets of Eliot, Thackeray, Dickens, Scott. Six years later he sold back to John Lovell's United Book Company. When Lovell failed, Worthington reclaimed much of his stock ! (They deserved each other)

Worthington pirated Estes & Lauriat's Chatterbox series (as did Frank Leslie, John Lovell, Belford Clark and others) and was sued by Estes & Lauriat (as were the others). Worthington offered $100 to anyone who could prove his Chatterbox books were identical in every way to Estes & Lauriat's. Oddly, although Leslie and the others lost the law-suits brought by Estes & Lauriat, the case against Worthington was thrown out.

In 1887, Estes & Lauriat again sued to stop Worthington from pirating their books, and this time they won - after many years and countless legal fees. Worthington responded to the loss by filing bankruptcy in 1892.

The bankruptcy trustee, trying to liquidate Worthington, ran into censorship problems when he tried to distribute Worthington's cheap editions of Arabian Nights, Tom Jones, The Decameron, Aladdin, and other classics.

Not everyone saw Worthington as a rogue – in 1881 when the Church of England published its ”Revised Version of the New Testament”, Worthington was entrusted with its publication in America. He sold nearly 400,000 copies in New York.

Walt Whitman, arguably America’s most influential and innovative poet, would have had a different view of Worthington. His Boston publishers of “Leaves of Grass”, Thayer and Eldridge, went bankrupt in 1861, and sold the plates of “Leaves” to Richard Worthington, who would continue to publish pirated copies of this edition for decades, creating real problems for Whitman every time he tried to market a new edition. Eventually Whitman was goaded into taking legal action to stop the unauthorised printing.

My thanks to HYDE PARK BOOK STORES for additional biographical information