Frederic G. Melcher was an American editor, publisher, and bookseller.
Background
Frederic Gershom Melcher was born on April 12, 1879 in Malden, Massachusetts. He was the son of Edwin Forrest Melcher and Alice Jane Bartlett. When he was four, the family moved to Newton Center, near Boston. His entry into the book business was accidental. His maternal grandfather, an owner of the Boston property that housed the well-known Estes and Lauriat Bookstore, inquired about an opening there for his grandson.
Education
Melcher attended the public schools and graduated from Newton High School in 1895. He took the "Institute course" in preparation for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but the death of his father and his own decision not to study engineering led him to look for a job instead.
Career
In June 1895, at the age of sixteen, Melcher went to work in Lauriat's mailroom at a salary of $4 a week. As a boy, books and reading were an important part of Melcher's life. He described himself as "a busy reader of almost anything that came to hand. " This interest in books soon took him out of the mailroom and onto Lauriat's selling floor, where he developed a large personal following. His feeling for fine literature and his ability to transmit his own enthusiasm to others were already apparent, and a large measure of his success as a bookseller was attributable to them. When Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale was issued by the George H. Doran Company in 1908, retailers gave it scant attention. But Melcher, excited by the book, urged it on his customers at Lauriat's so successfully that within two weeks he had sold 500 copies and started a sales reaction that swept across the country. Both Bennett and George Doran credited the American success of the book to Melcher. Melcher's work at Lauriat's led him to a broader interest in the book trade. He joined the newly formed Boston Booksellers' League, and in 1912 became its president. As a result of a spirited speech that he gave at the American Booksellers Association convention in New York City in 1911, Melcher was invited to take over W. Kerfoot Stewart's Indianapolis bookstore. In 1913 he and his family moved to Indianapolis, where he served as manager of W. K. Stewart Company for five years.
The store became the center of Indiana literary and artistic activity during the height of the Hoosier school of writing, and Melcher came to know Booth Tarkington, Vachel Lindsay, James Whitcomb Riley, George Ade, Meredith Nicholson, and other writers. He both promoted and collected their work. He also met Edwin Grabhorn, who set up his Studio Press in Indianapolis in 1915. They discussed book design and fine printing subjects that were to have special importance to Melcher throughout his life. It was also in Indianapolis that Melcher's deep interest in libraries took root, and he began giving the inspirational talks to library groups for which he later became so well known. In 1918 Melcher joined the R. R. Bowker Company in New York City as vice-president and as an editor of the firm's magazine, Publishers Weekly. For the rest of his life, Melcher was associated with Bowker and Publishers Weekly. He became president of Bowker in January 1934, shortly after the death of Richard Rogers Bowker. He served in this capacity until 1959, when he became chairman of the board. As editor of Publishers Weekly, Melcher recognized the interdependence of publishers, booksellers, and librarians, and he encouraged each group to help the others. Publishers Weekly became an organ for all segments of the book world. Foremost among his concerns throughout his long career at Publishers Weekly were the publication of quality children's books and the establishment of library services for children, the dangers of censorship, good bookmaking, United States adherence to international copyright, and professional education for booksellers and publishers.