house, constantly working with it to the development of pure
literature; the list of the authors and contributors being so long
as to include representatives of all the finest thinkers of the
day. Elegant art gift books of poem, classic and romance, have been
added with wise discrimination, until the list embraces sixteen
hundred books, out of which last year were printed and sold
1,500,000 volumes.

The great fire of 1872 brought loss to Mr. Lothrop among the many
who suffered. Much of the hard-won earnings of years of toil was
swept away in that terrible night. About two weeks later, a large
quantity of paper which had been destroyed during the great fire
had been replaced, and the printing of the same was in process at
the printing house of Rand, Avery & Co., when a fire broke out
there, destroying this second lot of paper, intended for the first
edition of sixteen volumes of the celebrated $1,000 prize books. A
third lot of paper was purchased for these books and sent to the
Riverside Press without delay. The books were at last printed, as
many thousand readers can testify, an enterprise that called out
from the Boston papers much commendation, adding, in one instance:
'Mr. Lothrop seems _warmed_ up to his work.'

When the time was ripe, another form of Mr. Lothrop's plans for the
creation of a great popular literature was inaugurated. We refer to
the projection of his now famous 'Wide Awake,' a magazine into
which he has thrown a large amount of money. Thrown it, expecting
to wait for results. And they have begun to come. 'Wide Awake' now
stands abreast with the finest periodicals in our country, or
abroad. In speaking of 'Wide Awake' the Boston Herald says: 'No
such marvel of excellence could be reached unless there were