Leigh Hunt and Charles Dickens: The Skimpole Caricature
(An account of Brewer's collection of Leigh Hunt first edi...)
An account of Brewer's collection of Leigh Hunt first editions, manuscripts, letters, and general Huntiana, and the relationship between Hunt and Dickens. Spotting on covers.
Luther Albertus Brewer was an American publisher, lecturer and writer. He served as treasurer of his Lutheran church, director of the American Trust and Savings Bank, president of the Cedar Rapids Art Association, and head of the board of trustees of the library.
Background
Luther Albertus was born on December 17, 1858 in Welsh Run, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of Jacob and Kate (Brewer) Brewer.
When he was eight, he moved to the home of an aunt and uncle, first in Sharpsburg, Maryland, then to a farm near Hagerstown. Brewer first began collecting books while in grammar school. His first volumes were inexpensive editions of Charles Dickens and the writings of William Shakespeare.
Education
Luther studied at Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) and received a Bachelor of Arts in 1883.
Luther spent a short time as the principal of a grammar school in Boonsboro, Maryland, then moved to Iowa in 1884, settling in Cedar Rapids.
In 1887 Brewer began his long career with the Cedar Rapids Daily Republican, starting as an editor. He held a number of positions at the paper, including business manager, publisher, part owner, and eventually became full owner of the paper. He was actively involved in Republican politics and was appointed by the governor to the post of state inspector of oils when the position was vacated by the death of L. S. Merchant, an owner of the Daily Republican. Brewer served in this position from October 1894 until June 1898, overseeing the inspection of kerosene and other illuminating oils offered for sale in Iowa. From about 1900 to 1907 Brewer traveled twenty-eight miles to Iowa City to lecture in the University of Iowa’s English Department. During this period he also served as the university’s publisher.
Around 1904 Brewer founded and became president of the Torch Press, merging its operation with that of the Republican Printing Company. William Harvey Miner ran the Torch Press Bookshop, established in 1907; in July 1916 the William Harvey Miner Company was opened in Saint Louis as the successor to the Torch Press Bookshop, with Brewer as vice president. Brewer’s presses printed the Daily Republican, the Cedar Rapids Evening Times, and the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, the predecessor of the Journal of American History.
Brewer produced his own limited-edition Christmas books. They carried the notation that they were “Privately printed for the friends of Luther Albertus and Elinore Taylor Brewer’’ or “Privately printed for the friends of the Torch Press and of Luther Albertus and Elinore Taylor Brewer.” Elinore designed an illuminated initial that adorned each of the early Christmas books from 1912 to 1917.
Brewer served as a delegate to several state conventions and as a delegate-at-large to the 1912 and 1916 Republican National Conventions. Brewer was also active in civic organizations and was a founder of the Cedar Rapids Rotary Club, going on to become district governor. He served as treasurer of his Lutheran church, director of the American Trust and Savings Bank, president of the Cedar Rapids Art Association, and head of the board of trustees of the library. He was secretary of the Society of the South, a group of people who had been bom in or lived in the south. He supported the Iowa chapter of his fraternity and became national treasurer, a position he held until his death.
Prior to World War I, Brewer began to collect relatively inexpensive first editions and letters by Leigh Hunt, an important poet and critic in the Romantic era of English Literature. In the early 1920s Brewer focused his collecting almost exclusively to Hunt. He acquired works by other authors in which Hunt had made marginal notations.
In 1929 Brewer retired from the Torch Press and the Daily Republican. By this time, the Hunt collection was attracting researchers and others interested in Hunt. In 1932 Brewer published the first of three parts of a catalogue of his Hunt collection, My Leigh Hunt Library, Collected and Described by Luther A. Brewer.
Luther was a Republican of the old school. He early entered politics and from 1893 to 1897 was state oil inspector. From year to year he would participate in the councils of the party in Iowa. The late, great President Taft and he were warm friends.
The tendency of radicalism to creep into his party always annoyed Luther.
Personality
Luther Albertus Brewer was fond of speaking and writing about books and browsing in bookshops, his favorite being Maggs Brothers of London.
Interests
Writers
Charles Lamb, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Browning, Thomas Moore, Lord Byron
Connections
On February 3, 1898 Luther married Elinore Taylor.