Biography

"James Cephas Derby, the eldest and best-known of the four brothers, was born in Little Falls, New York, in 1818. A fairly complete record of his life is preserved in hisFifty Years Among Authors, Books, and Publishers (1884), a lengthy volume of memoirs containing reminiscences of a tremendous number of nineteenth-century booktrade, literary, and public celebrities. James Derby's long career began in 1833, when as a boy of fifteen he was apprenticed to the firm of H. Ivison & Co., booksellers, of Auburn, New York. He soon gained the confidence of his employer, Henry Ivison (who later made a fortune as a publisher of school books in New York City) and in 1838 was placed in full charge of the shop. Two years later he was the proprietor of his own business in Auburn, under the title of J. C. Derby & Co., with Henry Ivison contributing needed capital and acting as a silent partner. In 1844 he made his debut as a publisher by issuing an unpretentious little volume of Presbyterian conference hymns, but he did not attempt any large projects until 1848, when he took one of his clerks into partnership under the firm name of Derby & Miller. This house, which was active until the senior partner's move to New York City in 1853, printed and published, according to Derby, "more than one hundred different books, consisting of school and law publications, standard histories, biographies, and miscellaneous works of a popular nature."

One of the younger Derby brothers who served his apprenticeship under James in Auburn was George Hunter Derby, born in Little Falls in 1823. The triple imprint of the fifth edition of Samuel Parker's Journal of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains (issued by J. C. Derby & Co., in Auburn, in 1846) indicates that by that time George was already in business for himself in Geneva, under the firm name of G. H. Derby & Co., with his brother James acting as silent partner. By 1849, George had moved to Buffalo, where he developed a flourishing bookstore and also published extensively, sometimes in connection with Derby & Miller of Auburn, H. W. Derby of Cincinnati, and C. L. Derby of Sandusky. The effectiveness of these combinations for purposes of distribution is evidenced by numerous double and triple imprints on the publications of each of the houses. Although a formal partnership did not exist among the four brothers, they did recognize a union of their business interests, as is shown by an advertisement in Miss C. B. Porter's The Silver Cup of Sparkling Drops, a temperance book published by George Derby in 1852. The advertisement lists "Valuable Books Published and for Sale by Messrs. Derby & Co. at Buffalo, Sandusky, Cincinnati, and Auburn."

In 1852, when the California fever was at its height, James and George Derby decided to open a branch store in the new El Dorado, and in preparation they sent a complete supply of books and stationery around the Horn by sailing ship. Before the goods arrived, however, the project was aborted by the sudden death of George, who fell a victim to the dread Asiatic cholera in Buffalo, in September, 1852. (The stock which had been sent to California later provided the nucleus of the very successful bookselling and publishing house organized in San Francisco by Hubert H. Bancroft, George Derby's brother-in-law and former clerk, since famous for his work in western history and for the library of source materials which he left to the University of California.)

James C. Derby remained in western New York for only about a year after George's death. In December, 1853, he moved to New York City and established his own publishing house at No. 8 Park Place. His business grew rapidly, and as manuscripts accumulated he engaged George Ripley as reader and, a few years later, Thomas Bailey Aldrich as assistant reader. Aldrich's first published volume of poems, The Bells, was issued by Derby in 1855. In the same year Edwin Jackson, who had gravitated to New York from Cooperstown, became a partner in the firm. The house of Derby & Jackson successfully weathered the panic of 1857, and at the time of its failure in 1861, during the turmoil of the first war year, its list of publications included more than three hundred titles.

Although J. C. Derby, like most American publishers of his time, reprinted established eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English works for which, in the absence of an international copyright law, he had to pay no royalties, many of his publications were copyrighted American books by authors well known in their day. Derby had a nose for "good selling books," and his initiative first brought before the public in book form the writings of such popular authors as "Fanny Fern" (Sarah Payson Willis) and B. P. Shillaber, the creator of "Mrs. Partington." It is difficult for a present-day reader to appreciate the appeal of a book like Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio, which Derby & Miller brought out in Auburn in 1853; yet it sold over eighty thousand copies in its first year and retained its popularity for a long time. The Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington, published by J. C. Derby in 1854, was not far behind. Derby did not have the good fortune to sponsor Uncle Tom's Cabin, although he did issue Mrs. Stowe'sThe Minister's Wooing in 1859.

James Derby spent most of the war years in Washington. In the summer of 1861 he was appointed Librarian of the Department of State by William Henry Seward, whom he had known of old in Auburn and whose Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams (1849) had been one of Derby & Miller's early publications. In April, 1865, Derby became United States Despatch Agent at New York, and later the same year he was given an opportunity to exercise the promotional ability with which he and his younger brothers were gifted when he was named United States General Agent of the Paris Exposition of 1867.

After a decade devoted largely to public affairs, Derby turned again to the publishing business. From 1872 he was associated, for a number of years prior to his death in Brooklyn in 1892, with the New York house of D. Appleton & Co. He was in charge of the Appleton subscription-book department, an extremely important branch of the publishing business before modern transportation systems had developed and when in many sections of the country the population was too scattered to support a local bookstore."