The title page of The Bijou indicates it was published in London, by William Pickering, Chancery Lane, 1828. William Pickering, publisher and bookseller, was born on 2 April 1796 into "humble circumstances," although he was apparently the son of an earl and lady, who were not married to each other, and he was put out to be raised by a tailor and his wife (Keynes 9). He was apprenticed at the age of 14 to Quaker booksellers John and Arthur Arch, and the arrangement may have been made by his biological father. Pickering’s early publications carry the coat of arms of the Earl of Spencer, as well as a dedication to him, and are cited as sufficient evidence that the Earl was, in fact, Pickering’s father.

After serving his time with the Arches, he left in 1818 and spent some time at another publishing house, and then a bookseller. By 1820, at the age of 24 he had started a bookselling business on his own. His business prospered, and as a antiquarian bookseller he was knowledgeable and acted as a buyer and advisor for libraries and private collectors. This interest and success in older books probably influenced the style of his later publication catalogue.

Pickering’s first book was Gilbert Burnet’s Lives of Sir Matthew Hale and the Earl of Rochester. It was printed by S. and R. Bentley and published in 1820 with an elegant title page. After this first modest publishing endeavor he formed a partnership with a printer, Charles Corrall, who had bought some type and wanted to use it. They published some diminutive volumes, titled the Diamond Classics, and printed in type so small that the pages could barely be read without a magnifying glass, but they were a novelty and a success.

By 1821 he had published another book, and from here he was publishing regularly, using what was at the time, a unique series of colors in the boards of his books, which was later widely imitated. He would publish 1,000 copies of each book; 500 in morocco and 500 in cloth boards of smooth red, magenta, puce or dark blue.

Pickering’s business moved, in 1825, to larger premises at 57 Chancery Lane, where he was able to increase his output of books.

Notable publications include Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in 1822, Decameron (with Stothard engravings) in 1825, William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, Bacon’s Advancement of Learning, the Works of Herrick in two volumes, and many, many others, including the three volumes of The Bijou: Annual of Literature and the Arts, 1828-30.

It is interesting to note that the authoritative biography of William Pickering, William Pickering Publisher by Geoffrey Keynes, 1969, does mention the The Bijou, but notes that the writers included in the publications are "Coleridge, Lamb, Hood, Southey, Mitford, etc.," no mention is made L.E.L.

Pickering was a prolific publisher in England in the early 1800s, publishing prose, as well as archelogical publications. His standards were "unusually high for a man whose aims were, after all, primarily commercial" and he was, according to his biographer, able to become an expert in many areas, including natural history, entomology, and fly-fishing. After his death, his private library was sold in a sale that went on for 28 days, and contained 9,711 lots.

Pickering died in 1854, and left "an indelible mark upon the annals of the book trade during the first half of the nineteenth century…. [He] had done more than any other single man to raise the standard of book production in all its details, whether of subject matter, typography, or binding" (Keynes 41).

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Keynes, Geoffrey Kt. William Pickering Publisher. New York: Burt Franklin, 1969.

Portrait of William Pickering.