One section of its members, including Thomas Wright, Mark Anthony Lower, James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, and Arthur Henfrey, transferred their publications to Russell Smith.
[1] Smith retired from business about 1884, when his stock and copyrights were sold; the "Library of Old Authors" was disposed of to the bookseller William Reeves, and his collection of engravings to Jonathan Nield.
[3] The titles are classified with collations and notes; Smith left two copies, with manuscript annotations, to the British Museum.
[1][4] Among the books Smith published were Robert Nares's Glossary (edited by Thomas Wright and Halliwell-Phillipps), William Barnes's Dialect Poems and Grammar, Edward Johnston Vernon's Guide to the Anglo-Saxon Tongue, and Joseph Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, abridged.
He is best remembered for his "Library of Old Authors" series of reprints, mainly of sixteenth and seventeenth century literature, printed by the Chiswick Press and issued between 1856 and 1875.