Mudie's Select Library

Charles Edward Mudie
Charles Edward Mudie by Frederick Waddy (1872)
Born	(1818-10-18)18 October 1818 Chelsea, London
Died	28 October 1890(1890-10-28) (aged 72)
Nationality	British
Occupation	Publisher, book seller, lending library proprietor

Charles Edward Mudie (18 October 1818, in Chelsea – 28 October 1890), English publisher and founder of Mudie's Lending Library and Mudie's Subscription Library, was the son of a second-hand bookseller and newsagent. Mudie's efficient distribution system and vast supply of texts revolutionized the circulating library movement, while his "select" library influenced Victorian middle-class values and the structure of the three-volume novel. He was also the first publisher of James Russell Lowell's poems in England, and of Emerson's Man Thinking.

Charles Edward Mudie was born in 1818 to Scottish parents in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. He received most of his education by assisting his father in his newspaper shop until he was twenty-two. In 1840, Mudie opened his first shop on Upper King Street, Bloomsbury.

Mudie originally opened his circulating library to give the public greater access to nonfiction works—which took up nearly one third of his stock—but the market value of the novel brought Mudie financial success. In 1842, he began to lend books to students at the University of London, charging subscribers one guinea per year for the right to borrow one volume of a novel at a time.

This proved so successful that in 1852 he moved his "Select Library" to larger premises at 509, 510 & 511 New Oxford Street, at its junction with Museum Street and Hart Street, just a few yards south of the British Museum. Mudie's soon had outlets on Cross Street in Manchester and on New Street in Birmingham.

London book deliveries were carried out by vans, and the expansion of railroads and trains allowed people to order books across the country. International orders were also issued and shipped abroad in tin boxes. Mudie's also exported books using watertight boxes, some of which were reported to have survived shipwreck.

Mudie was able to offer publishers advance purchase of three or four hundred copies of their new books and obtained corresponding discounts. The company's withdrawn books were offered for sale at £5 for a hundred volumes in 1860.