Letter from Henry Driver of Driver’s Bookshop to publishing house, Longmans, Green and Co.

31 October 1931

Mellor Collection, Box Nine, Folder Two

Unpublished

In 1899, Mellor won the 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship, and he left Dunedin, with his wife, Emma, for Owen’s College, Manchester, to study for his PhD. Mellor never returned to New Zealand. He published his first book, Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry, in 1902. Mellor continued to publish throughout his career – most notably, his sixteen-volume set, The Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry (1912-37), the epitome of chemistry textbooks. This letter from bookshop owner, Henry Driver, to Mellor’s publishers, Longmans, Green and Co., talks about one of the volumes in the set. Driver also mentions Mellor’s habit of wandering the bookshop as a student ‘in search of books on Chemistry’.