The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-01-09
PROSPECTUS:

The business OF the UNITED STATES
BOOK COMPANY is the manufacture, pub
fishing, and sale OF books. 1t has acquired by
purchase the entire business, stock in trade,
goodwill, trade marks, copyrights, manuscripts,
&C., of the John w. Lowell Company, including
in that purchase an enormous publishing plant
consisting of stereotype and electrotype plates
to the number of more than 1 100000 Its stock
of books consists of more than 100000
volumes, of the value at cost of manufacture Of
more than 81 100000.
The Company thus controls a great number of
important publications heretofore produced by
the following well-known publishing houses
from whom and others these plates were ac-
quired
w. L. Allison, N Y. IT, B. Lyon, Albany, NY.
Alden Book Co., N. Y. Bedford, Clarke q Co.,
G. ". Dillingham;, NY. Chicago;
Dodd, Mead y Co., n. " Donohoe &HenneD efry,
Empire Pub. Co., n. Y. Chicago.
Frank F. Lowell s. Co., Hubbard Bros, Phila. >
New York. Keystone Pub. Co.,
J. S. Ogilvie, N. Y. Philadelphia.
Norman L. Munro, NY. j. 3. Lippincott Co.,
Frank A. Munsey s. Co., Philadelphia.
New York Aldine Pub. Co, Boston.
National Pub Co., N. Y. Estes &; Laufiat, Boston,
Pollard & Moss, N. Y. De Wolfe, Fiske & Co.,
Worthington Co., n. VI Boston.
From the plates owned by this company are
printed more than three thousand different
volumes, embracing, among others, such stand
ard works as those of Dickens, Thackeray,
Walter Scott, Carlyle, Cooper, Irving, George
Eliot &C., sc. More than twelve million copies
of the books printed from the plates now con-
trolled by this Company were sold during 1889,
the year prec eding the present organization
The UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY
virtually controls within the United States
the publication of most of the popular
standard works, a business in which the
ordinary profits are very large. This profit
will be greatly increased by the freedom
from competition and the economies of
management which are secured by the con-
centratiOn of the various interests into one
company.
In addition to the very large and profit
able business above referred to, this Com
pany has contracted with over seventy of
the leading English authors, whereby it
acquires the exclusive right of publication
and sale of the works of these foreign
authors in this country during the term of
their copyright, which is for twenty-eigh
years, with renewal in certain cases for
fourteen years. Under the new copyright
law of the United States all foreign works
must be printed here to obtain copyright.
Included in the assets of the Company are
stereotype and electrotype plates, as above
noted, which have been appraised as OF q mar
who state that they give this valuation Chased
upon the condition and character of the plates
and our knowledge of the magnitude OF the bust
ness carried on by the UNITED STATES
BOOK COMPANY.b
The Company's charter gives it authority to
issue bonds and to execute mortgages to secure
such bonds. Under this powder the Company
has issued 81 ,0O0, 900 twenty-years per cent.
bonds. The plates whose appraised value, as
shown above, is three times the total bonded
debt, are included in the property covered by
the mortgage. A copy of the mortgage, with a
list of the plates, may be inspected at the office
of Messrs. JOHN H. DAVIS s. co.
As further security to the bondholders,
the mortgage provides for an annual sink
ing fund payment, beginning january,
1895, to be applied to the retirement of the
bonds through their purchase in the mar
ket at not exceeding 81 $50 per bond.
The Company's principal establishment en-
braces Nos. 142, LA, 146, 148, and $50 Worth
ments in vandewater st. and Wayerley Place.