[4]: 11  Windus was a silent partner, leaving the business decisions to Chatto and living for some of the time on the Isle of Man.

[note 2] In particular, Hotten had alienated the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne by paying him little if any of the profits from the publication of his Poems and Ballads, which had sold well.

[7] During the 1880s Chatto was determined to make his firm the leading publisher of novels in London, and set out to dramatically increase their list.

[8]: 581  He bought the rights to the existing works of popular novelists such as Ouida and Wilkie Collins, and then reprinting them in cheap editions.

[1] He bought the remaining stock and copyrights of Henry George Bohn for £20,000, which expanded the range and type of books that he published.

[1] Frank Arthur Swinnerton, who worked at the firm, recalls Chatto as: a gentle elderly man with a rolling walk, genially sweet in manner to every member of his staff, and much loved.

[9] The story of Rujub the Juggler illustrates two facets of Chatto's character, his support and encouragement for authors, the reason why Sutherland referred to the firm as the "hustlers" of the book trade.

Chatto recognised that juveniles were also reading the Henty novels, and he published a single volume edition with eight illustrations by Stanley L. Wood in time for the Christmas market in 1893.

[1] His daughter Isobel retained possession of his papers, including handwritten letters, manuscripts and a few books, and sold them at Sotheby's in 1916.