Roberts Brothers collection

The firm of Roberts Brothers began with Lewis Augustus Roberts (1833-1901), who, after emigrating from England, established a bookbinding business in Boston in 1840. Upon expansion, the firm included his two brothers, John and Austin. The bookbinding business eventually was sold in 1859. In 1862 during the Civil War, with the growing interest in the new medium of photography, the brothers began manufacturing and selling photographic albums and soon added job printing. Interested in getting into publishing, Lewis Roberts, who was the firm’s principal and handled its finances, hired Thomas Niles (1825-1894) as editor in 1863. Niles was particularly well suited for this position, having worked for famed Boston literary publisher Ticknor and Fields and at one time having run his own publishing company. His skill and his knowledge of the book market were invaluable, and the firm’s publishing venture flourished. In 1872, Niles was made a partner in the firm.

Roberts Brothers’ first great publishing success was an edition of the Poems of the English poet Jean Ingelow, little known today but in her time almost as popular as Tennyson. Notable books that followed included the first editions of leading American authors such Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868-1869), Little Men (1871) and many other publications, Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona (1884), and the Poems of Emily Dickinson (1890). Among British authors, the firm published the first American edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1884) as well as works of William Morris, Christina and Dante Rossetti, and Oscar Wilde. The sudden death of Niles from a heart attack while in Italy in 1894 led in a few years to the demise of Roberts Brothers, since he was the firm’s brains and driving force.