LONGMANS, a firm of English publishers. The founder, Thomas Longman (I) (1699-1755), was the son of Ezekiel Long man, a gentleman of Bristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller. He married Osborn's daugh ter, and in 1724 purchased the goods of William Taylor, the first publisher of Robinson Crusoe, for £2,282 9s. 6d. Taylor's two shops in Paternoster Row were known respectively as the Black Swan and the Ship. Osborn, who afterwards entered into part nership with his son-in-law, held one-sixth of the shares in Eph raim Chambers's Cyclopaedia of the Arts and Sciences, and Thomas Longman was one of the six booksellers who undertook the responsibility of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. In 1754 Thomas Longman took his nephew into partnership, the title of the firm becoming T. and T. Longman.
Upon the death of his uncle in Thomas Longman (2) be came sole proprietor. He had three sons. Of these, Thomas Nor ton Longman (3) succeeded to the business. In 1794 Owen Rees became a partner, and Thomas Brown, who was for many years after 181i a partner, entered the house as an apprentice. He pub lished the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and Scott.
In 1824 the title of the firm was 'changed to Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green. In 1814 arrangements were made with Thomas Moore for the publication of Lalla Rookh, for which he received £3,000; and when Archibald Constable failed in 1826, Longmans became the proprietors of the Edinburgh Review. Thomas Norton Longman (3) died on Aug. 29, 1842, leaving his two sons, Thomas (4) and William Longman in control. They first published Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, which was fol lowed in 1849 by the issue of the first two volumes of his History of England, which in a few years had a sale of 40,000 copies. Both brothers had literary talent Thomas Longman edited a beauti fully illustrated edition of the New Testament, and William Long man wrote a History of the Three Cathedrals dedicated to St. Paul (1869) and a work on the History of the Life and of Edward III. (1873). In 1890 they incorporated all the publi cations of the firm of Rivington, established in 1711. The family control of the firm (now Longmans, Green & Co.) was continued by Thomas Norton Longman (5), son of Thomas Longman (4).