Catalogue description Papers of the Lovell Reeve Publishing Company

Lovell Augustus Reeve (1814-1865):

Lovell Reeve, conchologist and publisher, was born at Ludgate Hill, London, on 19 April 1814, the son of Thomas Reeve, draper and mercer, and his wife, Fanny Lovell. After attending school at Stockwell he was apprenticed at the age of thirteen to a Mr Graham, a grocer of Ludgate Hill. In 1833 he attended the meeting of the British Association at Cambridge where he acted as conchologist to the natural history section on its excursion into the Fens.

His apprenticeship over, Reeve visited Paris where he read a paper on the classification of the Mollusca before the French Academy of Sciences. He returned to London and began work on his first book, Conchologia systematica (2 vols, 1841-1842). The publication costs, however, used up all the moneys left to him by his father. An opportunity to make some money came from his purchase, at Rotterdam, of a large collection of shells amassed by the Dutch governor-general of the Moluccas, General Ryder. Its profitable sale enabled Reeve to open a shop in King William Street, Strand, where he established himself as a dealer in natural objects and as a publisher specialising in natural history books.

About 1848 Reeve moved his business to 5 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, which also became his home from 1864. As a publisher he dealt with eminent scientists and was considered the leading natural history publisher of his time. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society (1846) and of the Geological Society (1853), but, despite being sponsored by Charles Darwin, was unsuccessful in his attempt (1849) to become a fellow of the Royal Society. He married, on 12 October 1837, Eliza Baker, a relative of his former master, Mr Graham; after her death he married, on 9 January 1854, Martha Reeve (possibly the author of Edible British Molluscs, 1867, under the pen name M S Lovell).

In 1845, as William Hooker and Samuel Curtis launched the Third Series of the Botanical Magazine, Reeve considered purchasing the publication. The magazine had a new sub-title which defined its limits 'The plants of the Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew, and of other botanical establishment in Great Britain'. When Reeve finally acquired the magazine, he had a new vignette of the Palm House cut, designed by its architect Decimus Burton, to emphasise the importance of its links with the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG); he also asked Hooker, who had by then become the first official Director of the RBG, to write an advertisement to launch its new publication. In 1852, financial difficulties compelled Reeve to cut down on the colouring of illustration plates, which became only partly coloured. In May 1860, Reeve undertook to publish a new magazine, to run alongside the Botanical Magazine, the Floral Magazine, which was announced for publication in May 1860. The Botanical Magazine under Sir William Hooker, would continue 'to represent the scientific department of Garden Botany' whereas the Floral Magazine would be devoted 'chiefly to meritorious varieties of such introduced plants only are as of popular character, and likely to become established favourites in the Garden, Hothouse or Conservatory'. The Floral Magazine ceased publication in 1881 and 14 years later the firm of Lovell Reeve was still trying to dispose of stocks of loose plates related to the magazine. However, this did not affect the Botanical Magazine, who pursued its traditional policy of reviewing new interesting species.

Reeve was a competent photographer and edited and published the monthly Stereoscopic Magazine from 1858. He also issued several sets of stereoscopic pictures. The magazine was only published for seven years as Reeve died at his home in Henrietta Street on 18 November 1865. His wife, Martha, survived him.

After Reeve's death:

When Reeve died, the management of the firm passed to his partner, Francis Lesiter Soper, and the editorship of the Botanical Magazine to Joseph Hooker, after his father's death in August 1865. In the early 1900s, Joseph Hooker resigned, and his son-in-law, Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, who was also the Director of the RBG, took over the editorship of the magazine. A few years later, the post went to Sir David Prain, Curator of the Herbarium and Library at Kew. When Francis Soper died in the early 1910s, his son succeeded him, but the magazine was then running into trouble, because of the First World War, but also because of the lack of flair and imagination which the Hookers had brought. The War brought on a shortage of staff and the magazine went from a monthly publication to quarterly.

In the 1920s, the magazine was running at a loss and in 1921 was bought by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), who also acquired the Company's old stock. The tradition of Directors of the RBG being appointed as Editor was continued, with Sir Arthur Hill succeeding Prain when he retired in 1922. The new owners of the magazine formed a committee to decide on the format the magazine was going to take, choosing in the process scientific publishers H F and G Witherby to publish it for three years. Lilian Snelling was appointed as Artist, succeeding Matilda Smith who had retired in 1921. Despite the quality of the editorship and the excellence of the drawings, the magazine was not breaking even nor making a profit and the RHS had to commit £500 as annual subsidy. In the 1930s, another crisis faced the magazine, as the traditional hand colouring was proving to be very expensive. As a result, the RHS decided to cut down on the number of colour plates and also to make extra colour plates available in the form of a colour supplement for those wishing to pay extra.

The Second World War saw the evacuation of the Library and Herbarium specimen rendering the taxonomic research needed for the magazine impossible, as well a shortage of hand colourists. Hand colouring was abandoned in the late 1940s, and was changed, first to a system of half-tone plates, and later to photogravure; the content was also changed so that more plants likely to be of interest to the average gardener and available through nurseries were included. In the 1950s, the publication was spread over two years, with only two volumes published per year. Lilian Snelling retired and Stella Ross-Craig was joined by Anne Webster and Margaret Stones as regular Artists. In 1966, Sir George Taylor, Director of the RGB and Editor, succeeded in obtaining financial assistance for the magazine from the Bentham-Moxon Trustees, and in 1966 the Trustees helped with artists' fees. In 1970, the copyright was transferred from the RHS to the Bentham-Moxon Trust. In the later years of the magazine there was little change in style or content, and in 1984 it was finally decided that it had to appeal to a wider audience as it had always been criticised as being 'written by botanists for botanists', and so it became incorporated within the Kew Magazine. The first number appeared in April 1984 Kew Magazine, incorporating Curtis's Botanical Magazine, subscribers being sought amongst botanists, ecologists, conservationists, gardeners and admirers of botanical art.