Mr. Mudie's "Select" Library

Censorship by selection in Victorian England

Charles Edward Mudie ( 1818 – 1890), English publisher and founder of Mudie's Lending Library and Mudie's Subscription Library, was the son of a second-hand bookseller and newsagent. Mudie's efficient distribution system and vast supply of texts revolutionized the circulating library movement, while his "select" library influenced Victorian middle-class values.¹

In the 18th century and continuing throughout the 19th century, circulating libraries became an integral part of the literary marketplace as the chief means of distributing books. Subscribers paid an annual or per-book fee to rent volumes. The relatively high price of books made circulating libraries an economical means for many middle-class families to access books: for less than the price of one three-volume novel a subscriber could borrow dozens if not more volumes.

Mudie’s Select Library (1842–1937) headquartered in London, had upwards of 50,000 subscribers,² established branches in other major cities, and shipped books around the world.³

Mudie’s Library as Cultural Censor Questioned

Mudie himself let it be known that this recognition was not undiscriminating. He was determined that only "good and moral" books should bear his Pegasus imprint.⁴ By choosing books that were viewed as moral and upright Mudie acted as a cultural arbiter with the authority to demarcate literary value: the traits one could use to define a novel as a culturally acceptable text, such as morality or aesthetic quality.

the core conflict was about the public’s right to select and interpret literature at their own discretion, rather than under the tutelage of a literary elite⁵

A sharp critique of the circulating libraries’ brand of censorship was a bitter complaint about the injustice of commercial interests dictating matters of taste.⁶

Public Libraries Ended Mudie’s Dominance

The decline of Mudie's eventually came as a result of the rising number of government-funded public libraries, which offered similar services.⁷ Mudie's Select Library was finally dismantled in 1937. No direct cause can be assigned for Mudie's decline, but a combination of forces probably accounted for it. Among them is certainly the growth of the free library which was able to supply current books to readers within a few weeks of publication and without charge.⁸

1. Guinevere L. Griest (1970), Mudie's circulating library and the Victorian novel, Bloomington: Indiana University Press; Griest, Guinevere L.  “A Victorian Leviathan: Mudie’s Select Library.”  Nineteenth-Century Fiction 20.2 (1965): 103-126. 

2. Mudie's Select Library and the Form of Victorian Fiction (victorianweb.org)

3. Circulating Libraries in the Victorian Era.

4. Colby, Robert A. 1952. “Librarian Rules the Roost.” Wilson Library Bulletin 26 (April): 623–27.

5. Katz, Peter J. “Redefining the Republic of Letters: The Literary Public and Mudie’s Circulating Library.” Journal of Victorian Culture : 22, no. 3 (2017): 399–417.

6. Literature at Nurse, a pamphlet about the censorship of literature | The British Library (bl.uk)

7. Lyons, Martyn (2011). Books: a living history. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. pp. 147–148.

8. Colby, Robert A. 1952. “Librarian Rules the Roost.” Wilson Library Bulletin 26 (April): 623–27.