Blois mentions a book which he had bought of a public dealer (a quodam publico mangone librorum); but we do not find many distinct accounts of them till the next age. These dealers were denominated stationarii, perhaps from the open stalls at which they carried on their business, though statio is a general word for a shop in low Latin. They appear, by the old statutes of the university of Paris, and by those of Bologna, to have sold books upon commission, and are sometimes, though not uniformly, distinguished from the librarii, a word which, having originally been confined to the copyists of books, was afterwards applied to those who traded in them. They sold parchment and other materials of writing, which have retained the name of stationery, and they naturally exercised the kindred occupations of binding and decorating. They probably employed transcribers; we find at least that there was a profession of copyists in the universities and in large cities.”
The modern system of bookselling dates from soon after the introduction of printing. The earliest printers were also editors and booksellers; but being unable to sell every copy of the works they printed, they had agents at most of the seats of learning. Antony Koburger, who introduced the art of printing into Nuremberg in 1470, although a printer, was more of a bookseller; for, besides his own sixteen shops, we are informed by his biographers that he had agents for the sale of his books in every city of Christendom. Wynkyn de Worde, who succeeded to Caxton’s press in Westminster, had a shop in Fleet Street.
The religious dissensions of the continent, and the Reformation in England under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., created a great demand for books; but in England neither Tudor nor Stuart could tolerate a free press, and various efforts were made to curb it. The first patent for the office of king’s printer was granted to Thomas Berthelet by Henry VIII. in 1529, but only such books as were first licensed were to be printed. At that time even the purchase or possession of an unlicensed book was a punishable offence. In 1556 the Company of Stationers was incorporated, and very extensive powers were granted in order that obnoxious books might be repressed. In the following reigns the Star Chamber exercised a pretty effectual censorship; but, in spite of all precaution, such was the demand for books of a polemical nature, that many were printed abroad and surreptitiously introduced into England. Queen Elizabeth interfered but little with books except when they emanated from Roman Catholics, or touched upon her royal prerogatives; and towards the end of her reign, and during that of her pedantic successor, James, bookselling flourished. Archbishop Laud, who was no friend to booksellers, introduced many arbitrary restrictions; but they were all, or nearly all, removed during the time of the Commonwealth. So much had bookselling increased during the Protectorate that, in 1658, was published A Catalogue of the most Vendible Books in England, digested under the heads of Divinity, History, Physic, &c., with School Books, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and an Introduction, for the use of Schools, by W. London. A bad time immediately followed. The Restoration also restored the office of Licenser of the Press, which continued till 1694.
In the first English Copyright Act (1709), which specially relates to booksellers, it is enacted that, if any person shall think the published price of a book unreasonably high, he may thereupon make complaint to the archbishop of Canterbury, and to certain other persons named, who shall thereupon examine into his complaint, and if well founded reduce the price; and any bookseller charging more than the price so fixed shall be fined £5 for every copy sold. Apparently this enactment remained a dead letter.
For later times it is necessary to make a gradual distinction between booksellers, whose trade consists in selling books, either by retail or wholesale, and publishers, whose business involves the production of the books from the author’s manuscripts, and who are the intermediaries between author and bookseller, just as the booksellers (in the restricted sense) are intermediaries between the author and publisher and the public. The article on Publishing (q.v.) deals more particularly with this second class, who, though originally booksellers, gradually took a higher rank in the book-trade, and whose influence upon the history of literature has often been very great. The convenience of this distinction is not impaired by the fact either that a publisher is also a wholesale bookseller, or that a still more recent development in publishing (as in the instance of the direct sale in 1902, by the London Times, of the supplementary volumes to the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which were also “published” by The Times) started a reaction to some extent in the way of amalgamating the two functions. The scheme of The Times Book Club (started in 1905) was, again, a combination of a subscription library with the business of bookselling (see Newspapers); and it brought the organization of a newspaper, with all its means of achieving publicity, into the work of pushing the sale of books, in a way which practically introduced a new factor into the bookselling business.
During the 19th century it remains the fact that the distinction between publisher and bookseller—literary promoter and shopkeeper—became fundamental. The booksellers, as such, were engaged either in wholesale bookselling, or in the retail, the old or second-hand, and the periodical trades.
Coming between the publisher and the retail bookseller is the important distributing agency of the wholesale bookseller. It is to him that the retailer looks for his miscellaneous supplies, as it is simply impossible for him to stock one-half of the books published. In Paternoster Row, London, which has for over a hundred years been the centre of this industry, may be seen the collectors from the shops of the retail booksellers, busily engaged in obtaining the books ordered by the book-buying public. It is also through these agencies that the country bookseller obtains his miscellaneous supplies. At the leading house in this department of bookselling almost any book can be found, or information obtained concerning it. At one of these establishments over 1,000,000 books are constantly kept in stock. It is here that the publisher calls first on showing or “subscribing” a new book, a critical process, for by the number thus subscribed the fate of a book is sometimes determined.
What may be termed the third partner in publishing and its ramification is the retail bookseller; and to protect his interests there was established in 1890 a London booksellers’ society, which had for its object the restriction of discounts to 25%, and also to arrange prices generally and control all details connected with the trade. The society a few years afterwards widened its field of operations so as to include the whole of the United Kingdom, and its designation then became “The Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and Ireland.”
The trade in old or (as they are sometimes called) second-hand books is in a sense, no doubt, a higher class of business, requiring a knowledge of bibliography, while the transactions are with individual books rather than with numbers of copies. Occasionally dealers in this class of books replenish their stocks by purchasing remainders of books, which, having ceased from one cause or another to sell with the publisher, they offer to the public as bargains. The periodical trade grew up during the 19th century, and was in its infancy when the Penny Magazine, Chambers’s Journal, and similar publications first appeared. The growth of this important part of the business was greatly promoted by the abolition of the newspaper stamp and of the duty upon paper, the introduction of attractive illustrations, and the facilities offered for purchasing books by instalments.
The history of bookselling in America has a special interest. The Spanish settlements drew away from the old country much of its enterprise and best talent, and the presses of Mexico and other cities teemed with publications mostly of a religious character, but many others, especially linguistic and historical, were also published. Bookselling in the United States was of a somewhat later growth, although printing was introduced into Boston as early as 1676, Philadelphia in 1685, and New York in 1693. Franklin had served to make the trade illustrious, yet few persons were engaged in it at the commencement of the 19th century. Books chiefly for scholars and libraries were imported from Europe; but after the second war printing-presses multiplied rapidly, and with the spread of newspapers and education there also arose a demand for books, and publishers set to work to secure the advantages offered by the wide field of English literature, the whole of which they had the liberty of reaping free of all cost beyond that of production. The works of Scott, Byron, Moore, Southey, Wordsworth, and indeed of every author of note, were reprinted without the smallest payment to author or proprietor. Half the names of the authors in the so-called “American” catalogue of books printed between 1820 and 1852 are British. By this means the works of the best
