Edward Moxon was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 poet and publisher, significant in Victorian literature

Victorian literature

Victorian literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria . It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century....

.

Moxon was born at Wakefield

Wakefield

Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....

 in Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, where his father Michael worked in the wool trade. In 1817 he left for London, joining Longman

Longman

Longman was a publishing company founded in London, England in 1724. It is now an imprint of Pearson Education.-Beginnings:The Longman company was founded by Thomas Longman , the son of Ezekiel Longman , a gentleman of Bristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller, and...

 in 1821. In 1826, encouraged by his friend Charles Lamb, he published a volume of verse, entitled The Prospect, and other Poems, which was received favourably.

In 1830 Moxon started his own publishing firm in New Bond Street, aided by a £500 loan from Samuel Rogers

Samuel Rogers

Samuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...

. The first volume he produced was Charles Lamb's Album Verses. Moxon also published an illustrated edition of Rogers's Italy in 1830, £10,000 being spent upon the illustrations. Moving to 44 Dover Street, Piccadilly in 1833, Moxon married Emma Isola, the orphan adopted by Charles and Mary Lamb

Mary Lamb

Mary Ann Lamb , was an English writer, the sister and collaborator of Charles Lamb.-Biography:She was born on 3 December 1764. In 1796, Mary, who had suffered a breakdown from the strain of caring for her family, killed her mother with a kitchen knife, and from then on had to be kept under constant...

, in the same year. William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

 entrusted him with the publication of his works from 1835 onwards, and in 1839 he issued the first complete edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

's poems.

Some passages in Shelley's Queen Mab

Queen Mab

Queen Mab is a fairy referred to in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. She also appears in other 17th century literature, and in various guises in later poetry, drama and cinema...

resulted in a charge of blasphemy

Blasphemy

Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...

 being made against Moxon in 1841. The case was tried before Lord Denman

Thomas Denman, 1st Baron Denman

Thomas Denman, 1st Baron Denman PC KC was a British lawyer, judge and politician. He served as Lord Chief Justice between 1832 and 1850.-Background and education:Denman was born in London, the son of Dr Thomas Denman...

. Serjeant Talfourd defended Moxon, but the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the offensive passages were expunged. Moxon continued to publish: in 1840 he published Robert Browning

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...

's Sordello, and in succeeding years works by Richard Monckton Milnes

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton FRS was an English poet, patron of literature and politician.-Background and education:...

, Tom Hood

Tom Hood

Tom Hood , was an English humorist and playwright, son of the poet and author Thomas Hood. A prolific author, he was appointed, in 1865, editor of the magazine Fun. He also founded Tom Hood's Comic Annual in 1867....

, Barry Cornwall, Lord Lytton, Browning and Alfred Tennyson appeared. Both Tennyson and Wordsworth were to become personal friends of Moxon.

On Moxon's death, his business was continued by the printer Frederick Evans

Bradbury and Evans

Bradbury and Evans was an English printer and publisher founded by William Bradbury and Frederick Mullet Evans. For the first ten years they were printers, then added publishing in 1841 after they purchased Punch magazine. As printers they did work for Edward Moxon and Chapman and Hall...

 and later James Bertrand Payne, with input from Moxon's widow Emma and his son Arthur. In 1865 the firm published Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

's Atalanta in Calydon; in 1871 it was taken over by Ward, Lock & Tyler.