William Pembroke Fetridge (1827-1896) was a travel writer, publisher, bookseller and periodicals distributor. He lived in the Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 area and in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France.

Brief biography

From ca.1848 W.P. Fetridge lived in East Cambridge, Massachusetts.
His children included Henry Pembroke Fetridge.

Fetridge and Company operated in Boston from 1850 through 1855. In addition to publishing books on a wide variety of topics, the company also ran a retail shop that sold popular magazines, medical journals, law journals, and foreign news. The shop was known as the Periodical Depot or the Periodical Arcade, with entrances on both Washington Street

Washington Street (Boston)

Washington Street is a street originating in downtown Boston, Massachusetts that extends southwestward to the Massachusetts-Rhode Island state line. The majority of it was built as the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike in the early nineteenth century...

 and State Street

State Street (Boston)

State Street is a major street in the financial district in Boston, Massachusetts and is one of the oldest streets in the city. The street is the site of some historic landmarks. The Faneuil Hall Marketplace can also be found nearby...

.
In 1850, the Periodical Depot published and imported "English books," and served as agents for: Godey's Lady's Book

Godey's Lady's Book

Godey's Lady's Book, alternatively known as Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book, was a United States magazine which was published in Philadelphia. It was the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the Civil War. Its circulation rose from 70,000 in the 1840s to 150,000 in 1860...

; Harper & Brothers

Harper & Brothers

Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins.-History:James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them...

's publications such as Harper's New Monthly Magazine

Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

; Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion

Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion

Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion was a 19th-century illustrated periodical published in Boston, Massachusetts. The magazine was founded by Frederick Gleason in 1851. It became Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion in 1855, after managing editor Maturin Murray Ballou bought out the...

; The Flag of Our Union

The Flag of Our Union

The Flag of our Union was a popular, weekly newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts in the mid-19th century. In addition to news, it published works of fiction and poetry, including contributions from notable writers.-Brief history:...

; Fowler

Orson Squire Fowler

Orson Squire Fowler was a phrenologist who popularized the octagon house in the middle of the nineteenth century....

 & Wells' phrenological works; Hollick's medical works; Graham's Magazine

Graham's Magazine

Graham's Magazine was a nineteenth century periodical based in Philadelphia established by George Rex Graham. It was alternatively referred to as Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine , Graham's Magazine of Literature and Art , Graham's American Monthly Magazine of Literature and Art Graham's...

; John Sartain

John Sartain

John Sartain was an artist who pioneered mezzotint engraving in the United States.-Biography:John Sartain was born in London, England on October 24, 1808. He learned line engraving, and produced several of the plates in William Young Ottley's Early Florentine School . In 1828, he began to do...

's Magazine; Hunt's Merchant's Magazine and Commercial Review; James Braithwaite's Retrospect of Medicine; Rankin's Abstract of the Medical Sciences; Law Library; London Lancet

The Lancet

The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...

; "the foreign reviews, ... British and foreign medical reviews, ... Democratic and Whig reviews, ... London newspapers."

The Periodical Arcade also sold Jacob Townsend's Genuine Sarsparilla; and "The Balm of a Thousand Flowers," a soap compound of "oil, ashes and alcohol." In 1851 proprietors of the Periodical Arcade included T.M. Fetridge and Thomas Wagstaff.

Harper's publishing company sent Fetridge to Europe around 1865 to compile a travel guide. The success of the first guide led to updated editions in later years. Fetridge lived the last part of his life in Paris, where he died in 1896. His son Henry took over as chief editor and director of Fetridge 's Handbooks for Travelers in Europe and the East.

Selected publications of Fetridge & Co.

• Warren Colburn. An introduction to algebra, upon the inductive method of instruction. 1851.
• Abner Forbes; J W Greene. Rich men of Massachusetts: containing a statement of the reputed wealth of about two thousand persons, with brief sketches of nearly fifteen hundred characters. 1852.
• Boston slave riot, and trial of Anthony Burns
  Anthony Burns
  Anthony Burns was born a slave in Stafford County, Virginia. As a young man, he became a Baptist and a "slave preacher"...
  
  : Containing the report of the Faneuil Hall
  Faneuil Hall
  Faneuil Hall , located near the waterfront and today's Government Center, in Boston, Massachusetts, has been a marketplace and a meeting hall since 1742. It was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain, and is now part of...
  
   meeting, the murder of Batchelder, Theodore Parker's Lesson for the day, speeches of counsel on both sides, corrected by themselves, a verbatim report of Judge Loring's decision, and detailed account of the embarkation. 1854.
• Alexander Fraser Tytler
  Alexander Fraser Tytler
  Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee was a Scottish lawyer, writer, and professor. Tytler was also a historian, and for some years was Professor of Universal History, and Greek and Roman Antiquities, in the University of Edinburgh. Tytler's other titles included Senator of the College of...
  
  . Universal history, from the creation of the world to the beginning of the eighteenth century. ca.1855.
• Ann S Stephens. The old homestead. 1855.
• Miss Pardoe. The wife's trials: A novel. 1855.
• Hannah Webster Foster; Jane E Locke. The coquette; or, The history of Eliza Wharton. A novel: founded on fact. 1855.

Selected works written by Fetridge

• Harper's hand-book for travelers in Europe and the East. New-York: Harper & Brothers, 1862.
• Harper's phrase-book; or, Hand-book of travel talk for travellers and schools. Being a guide to conversations in English, French, German, and Italian, on a new and improved method. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1868.
• The rise and fall of the Paris commune in 1871; with a full account of the bombardment, capture, and burning of the city. New York, Harper & Bros., 1871.