Stuart Clarkson

I first developed an interest in the Rose Publishing Company, along with fellow late-Victorian Toronto publishers William Bryce and the National Publishing Company, while researching a 2005 Bibliographical Society of Canada conference paper on William A. Letson, a bookseller in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Upon discovering recently that the Rose family name had formerly been spelled Rosie in its native Scotland, I was eager to discover if I could find any links with that earlier name in the few extant records of the Rose family’s Canadian publishing companies. At first I thought the cash book did in fact contain such a link but, upon closer examination of the cramped letters, found that the entry in question read “Rine Club,” not Rosie Club as at first I had hoped. But by then I was immersed in the cash book, a beautifully made book replete with information, and wanted to tell its story.