Chambers's "Information for the People" Describes the New Printing Technology; Chambers' Business in 1850

In 1835 publishers William and Robert Chambers of Edinburgh launched an encyclopedia published in parts for 1.5d each entitled Chambers's' Information for the People. The work, which was initially published in folio format identical to Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, was very sparcely illustrated. The publishers devoted part No. 35 to "The Art of Printing." This issue was illustrated with a large wood engraving of their steam-powered rotary press, and included a detailed account of the development of printing and an unusually detailed account of the operation of the latest steam-driven printing machinery used to print Chambers' larger circulation publications.  The issues of this encyclopedia indicate that it was distributed in Edinburgh, London, and Dublin.

In his The Typographical Miscellany (1850) p. 54 American practical printer and historian Joel Munsell commented on the Chambers business in this way:

"The Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh, are considered unrivalled for the extent and complete of their establishment, some five hundred persons being employed in its several departments, of type-setting, stereotyping, printing, and binding. It is impossible to ascertain the gross percuniary amount of their operations per annum. Some idea of their prodigious extent may be inferred from the fact that for one item, the paper used for their series of cheap tracts, they paid £25,766, more than $125,000. They also paid the enormous sum of £40,000 merely for advertising their Cyclopaedia of Literature—proof sufficient of the prodigal liberality of thier business policy. Their establishment is eleven stories high; their presses throw off 150,000 whole sheets a day...."