Thomas Hookham

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Thomas Hookham (c.1739–1819){{cite book |chapter=Shelley's Correspondents: Thomas Hookham, Junr. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kUk7AAAAYAAJ&pg=PR26 |title= Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley |editor=Roger Ingpen |year=1912 |location=London }} was a bookseller and publisher in London in the 18th-19th centuries. He issued works by Charlotte de Bournon, John Hassell, Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Nougaret, Ann Radcliffe, Clara Reeve, and others. As part of his business he ran a circulating library,{{Citation |publisher = Printed for the author at the Literary-Press |title = London Adviser and Guide |edition=2nd |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/londonadviseran00trusgoog#page/n139/mode/2up |chapter=Conveniences in London |author = John Trusler |date = 1790 |oclc = 15076772 }}{{cite journal |title=The Community Library: A Chapter in English Social History |author= Paul Kaufman |journal= Transactions of the American Philosophical Society |volume= 57 |issue= 7 |pages= 1–67 |year=1967 |jstor=1006043 |doi= 10.2307/1006043 }} established in 1764 and by the 1800s one of "the two largest in London."{{cite journal |title=Popular Fiction and National Tale: Hidden Origins of Scott's Waverley |author= Peter Garside |journal= Nineteenth-Century Literature |volume= 46 |issue= 1 |pages= 30–53 |year= 1991 |jstor=3044962 |doi= 10.2307/3044962 }}{{refn|group=nb|Competitors included circulating libraries of John Bell, John Boosey, John Booth, Carpenter, Cawthorn, Cheesewright, Creighton, Thomas Dangerfield, Dutton, William Earle,{{cite book |title=Picture of London, for 1807 |author=John Feltham |publisher=Richard Phillips |edition=8th |location=London |chapter= Circulating Libraries |year=1807 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j9MHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA318 |author-link=John Feltham }} William Lane, John Noble, David Ogilvy, Parson, Tegg, and Thomas Vernor.{{citation |url=http://bookhistory.blogspot.com/2007/01/london-1775-1800-h.html |title=Thomas Hookham |work=The London Book Trades 1775-1800: a preliminary checklist of members |series=Exeter Working Papers in British Book Trade History | author=Ian Maxted |year=2007 }}}} The library continued on Bond Street until it was acquired by Mudie's ca.1871.{{citation |title=English and Foreign Library Company, Limited. Late Hookham's Library, established 1764 (advert) |work=Alden's Illustrated Family Miscellany |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6nUOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PT321 |date=October 1866 |location=Oxford |quote=Cheap reading for the million |last1=Alden |first1=Henry }}{{cite journal |title=A Victorian Leviathan: Mudie's Select Library |author= Guinevere L. Griest |journal= Nineteenth-Century Fiction |volume= 20 |issue= 2 |pages= 103–126 |year= 1965 |jstor=2932540 |doi= 10.2307/2932540 }} In addition, about 1794 he opened the Literary Assembly subscription reading rooms stocked with periodicals and reference books.

His sons, Thomas Hookham, Jr. (1787–1867) and Edward T. Hookham also worked as publishers and booksellers in London.{{Citation |publisher = Harvard University Press |isbn = 0674089413 |location = Cambridge, Mass |title = "Famous in My Time": 1810-1812 |author = Lord Byron |date = 1973 |author-link = Lord Byron }} A third generation, Thomas Hookham and Henry Hookham, continued in the business into the mid 19th century.{{Citation |publisher = Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. |location = London |title = Random recollections of an old publisher |author = William Tinsley |date = 1900 |oclc = 1655793 |ol = 6902927M |author-link = William Tinsley (publisher) }}