Annals of a Publishing House contains the early history of the influential Scottish publishing house, William Blackwood and Sons. From small beginnings, the firm had rapidly become the leading Scottish publishing house, dominating the literary world, particularly through Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and an impressive list of famous writers. These included Thomas de Quincey, Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Hardy, Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The Magazine introduced the convention of having novels issued in serial form before publication as a book, which became standard practice for Victorian authors. Owing to the death in 1897 of Mrs Oliphant, the originally commissioned author and successful novelist, Volume 3 was written by Mary Porter, daughter of John Blackwood, sixth son of the founder, under whose control the firm greatly increased its influence and range of publications.