AustLit

In 1876 Montreal-born Lovell established the firm of Lovell, Adam & Company in New York City for the purpose of reprinting cheap editions of British books. His partner was G. Mercer Adam, a fellow Canadian.... In 1887 the partnership was dissolved and Lovell began to publish on his own.... Lovell started as a pirate with the intention of breaking the courtesy of the trade principle of the literary establishment.... In 1881 he reorganized his business, calling it John W. Lovell Company, and the following year he introduced the Lovell's Library, a series of paperbacks priced at ten, twenty, or thirty cents. Beginning as a weekly, the series grew until, by 1890, it had become a triweekly. Lovell issued his books either in cloth or in paper. Publishing seven million cheap books a year, he became known as Book-A-Day Lovell.... In 1890 Lovell's publishing activities culminated in the formation of the United States Book Company. Within three years, however, this firm went into bankruptcy and by 1900 Lovell had completely disappeared from the annals of publishing. He died in 1932. (Kurian, George Thomas. The Directory of American Book Publishing: From Founding Fathers to Today's Conglomerates. New York: Simon & Schuster,1975).