Mudie originally opened his circulating library to give the public greater access to non-fiction works — which comprised nearly one third of his stock — but the market value of the novel brought him financial success.

[4] In 1842, he began to lend books, charging subscribers one guinea per year for the right to borrow one exchangeable volume of a novel at a time.

[8] The Vienna Café, a haunt of artists and writers using the British Museum Reading Room, stood opposite the library on New Oxford Street.

[8] In the Victorian era, the cost of novels exceeded the means of most middle-class Englishmen,[12] so popular lending-libraries like Mudie's had a strong influence over the public — and thus over authors and publishers.

The rise of the three-volume novel can be directly attributed to this influence, and Mudie's refusal to stock immoral books and "novels of questionable character or inferior quality",[14] such as George Moore's A Modern Lover (1883), A Mummer's Wife (1885) and A Drama in Muslin (1886), also had an effect on the direction of Victorian literature.

George Moore criticized the moral and structural power the circulating library system had on literary distribution.

"[15] Mudie was also crucial in the success of scientific volumes – in November 1859 he bought 500 copies of the first publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

[17] In 1860 the company's New Oxford Street premises were substantially enlarged, and new branches of the business were subsequently established in other English cities such as York, Manchester, and Birmingham.

[20] The decline of Mudie's eventually came as a result of the rising number of government-funded public libraries, which offered similar services at a much-reduced rate.

I made off up the roadway to Bloomsbury Square, intending to strike north past the Museum and so get into the quiet district."

In Can You Forgive Her?, Alice, newly arrived at Matching Priory, informs Jeffrey Palliser: "I have amused myself by reading."