RA Collection: People and Organisations
Publishing firm founded in 1854 or 1858 by the brothers William Tinsley (1831–1902) and Edward Tinsley (1835–1865) and continuing until the late 1880s. The firm had its first major success with Mary Elizabeth Braddon's first novel Lady Audley's Secret in 1862. The book was hugely profitable for Tinsley Brothers and started an association of the firm with sensation novels, continued in other novels by Mrs. Braddon, Ouida and Sheridan Le Fanu, and perhaps most significantly The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. The firm went on to publish the first books by Thomas Hardy and G. A. Henty and the first novels of Richard Jefferies. In 1867 the firm began publishing Tinsleys' Magazine in which was published short fiction and serialisations of books that Tinsley Brothers were bringing out, including Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes. The final decades of the firm were marked by financial crises. In 1887 Tinsley Brothers had liabilities of £1,000. The few books dated 1888 from the firm are presumably orders already placed with the printers before bankruptcy.