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CADELL, ROBERT (1788-1849),
publisher, was a cadet of the family of Cadell of Cockenzie, East Lothian,
and born there on 16 Dec. 1788. About the age of nineteen he entered the
publishing house of Archibald Constable & Co., of Edinburgh [see Constable,
Archibald], becoming in 1811 a partner, and in 1812 the sole partner of
Constable, whose daughter he married in 1817. She died a year afterwards (he
married a second time in 1821), and with her death began frequent
disagreements between the two partners, Cadell being cautious and frugal,
Constable lavish and. enterprising to rashness. They agreed, however, as to
the value of the firm’s connection with Walter Scott, to whom Cadell, in the
absence of his partner, once offered l,000l. for an unwritten drama— 'Halidon
Hill.’ During the commercial crisis of 1825-6, which brought the house of
Constable to the ground, each partner desired to separate from the other,
and to retain for himself the connection with Scott, in whose ‘Diary’ for 24
Jan. 1825 occurs the remark, ‘Constable without Cadell is like getting the
clock without the pendulum, the one having the ingenuity, the other the
caution of the business.’ Cadell’s advice led Scott to reject a proposal of
Constable’s for the relief of the firm from its difficulties, which would
have involved him in heavy pecuniary liabilities without averting either the
ruin of the firm or Scott’s consequent bankruptcy. In his ‘Diary,’ 18 Dec.
1825, Scott speaks gratefully of Cadell, who had brought good news and shown
deep feeling. After the failure of the firm, Constable and Cadell dissolved
partnership. Scott adhered to Cadell, who was the sole publisher of his
subsequent novels, and their relationship became one of confidential
intimacy. They resolved to unite in purchasing the property in the novels,
from ‘Waverley’ to ‘Quentin Durward,’ with a majority of the shares in the
poetical works, and determined to issue a uniform edition of the ‘Waverley
Novels,’ with new prefaces and notes by the author. The copyrights were
purchased for 8,5007. The publication of the ‘author’s edition’ began in
1827, and was most successful. Cadell persuaded Scott not to issue a fourth
‘Malachi Malagrowther’ letter against parliamentary reform, partly on the
ground that it might endanger the success of that edition of the novels.
Scott made his will in Cadell’s house in Edinburgh, and entrusted it to
Cadell’s keeping. Lockhart speaks of Cadell’s ‘delicate and watchful
attention’ to Scott during his later years. He accompanied Scott in his
final journey from London to Edinburgh and Abbotsford in July 1832.
After Scott’s death, the balance of his debts, through his partnership with
the Ballantynes, was 30,000l. In 1833 Cadell made (‘very handsomely,’
Lockhart says) the offer, which was accepted, to settle at once with Scott’s
creditors on receiving as his sole security the right to the profits
accruing from Scott’s copyrights and literary remains until this new
liability to himself should be discharged. Restricting- his operations
almost exclusively to the publication of Scott’s works, he issued, with
great success, an edition of the ‘Waverley Novels,’ 48 vols. 1830-1834, and
in 1842-7 (12 vols.) the Abbotsford edition, which was elaborately
illustrated, and on the production of which he is said to have expended
40,000l. Of a cheap ‘people’s’ edition 70,000 copies, it is said,
were sold. In 1847 there remained due to Cadell a considerable sum, and to
other creditors on Scott’s estate the greater part of an old debt for money
raised on the house and lands of Abbotsford. Cadell offered to relieve the
guardians of Sir Walter Scott’s granddaughter from all their liabilities to
himself and to the mortgagees of Abbotsford, on the transfer to him of the
family’s remaining rights in Scott’s works, together seemingly with the
future profits of Lockhart’s ‘Life of Scott.’ Another stipulation was that
Lockhart should execute for him an abridgment of that biography, and only
gratitude to Cadell for his conduct in the whole business induced Lockhart
to perform the task. The possessor of a handsome estate in land, and of
considerable personal property, Cadell died on 20 Jan. 1849 at Ratho House,
Midlothian, from which he was driven to his place of business in St. Andrew
Square, Edinburgh, every morning at nine, with such punctuality; that the
inhabitants of the district traversed knew the time by the appearance of
‘the Ratho coach.’ Lockhart characterises him as ‘a cool, inflexible
specimen of the national character,' and Ballantyne Humbug handled, 1837) as
‘one of the most acute men of business in creation.’ |
