periodical literature—prices of books; 18th century—two classes of buyers—the magazines—collections of the poets—the circulating library—cheap book-clubs.

on the 8th of february, 1696, our friend john dunton completed the nineteenth volume of 'the athenian mercury, resolving all the most nice and curious questions proposed by the ingenious.' this penny tract, published twice a-week, consisted of a single leaf. "the ingenious" ceased to question, and "the athenian society," as the bookseller called his scribes, ceased to answer, after six years of this oracular labour. there came an irruption of the barbarians, in the shape of "nine newspapers every week." john proposed to resume his task "as soon as the glut of news is a little over." the countryman waiting for the river to roll by was not more mistaken. in 1709 there was one daily paper in london; twelve, three times a-week; and three, twice a-week. amongst those of three times a-week was 'the tatler,' which commenced april 12, 1709. the early tatlers had their regular foreign intelligence. they were as much newspapers as 'the flying post' and 'the postboy.' but isaac bickerstaff, esq., very soon discontinued the information which he derived from letters from the hague and advices from berlin. he had something of a more {219} original character to offer his readers. the state of popular enlightenment at this period has been described by johnson in his life of addison:—"that general knowledge which now circulates in common talk was in his time rarely to be found. men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and in the female world any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured." steele and addison had to form the taste of the new generation that they were addressing. they knew that there was a large class craving amusement, who might at the same time be refined and instructed without the pretensions of "the budge doctors of the stoic fur." they meddled little with politics. they left the furious discussions about church and state to papers with an earnest political purpose, of which charles leslie, a violent tory, thus spoke in his 'rehearsals:'—"the greatest part of the people do not read books; most of them cannot read at all: but they will gather together about one that can read, and listen to an observator or review, as i have seen them, in the streets." the tatler has been described as a great success; but we may measure that success by that of the more popular spectator. in no. 555 of that work steele says,—"the tax on each half-sheet has brought into the stamp-office, one week with another, above 20l. a-week, arising from the single paper, notwithstanding it at first reduced it to less than half the number that was usually printed before the tax was laid." the tax being a halfpenny, {220} this would only show a daily circulation of 1600, and of about 3000 when it was unstamped. but the sale in volumes, according to the same statement, was as high as 9000 of each volume. this fact gives us a higher notion of the popularity of these charming papers, and of the consequent extent of general reading, than any other circumstance in the literary history of that period. but even the comparatively small daily sale was of importance, as showing that the great middle class was beginning to seek something better than could be found in the coarse and meagre news-sheets. the annals of 'the gentlemen's society at spalding' record that in april, 1709, some residents there heard of the tatlers, and ordered them to be sent to the coffee-house in the abbey-yard:—"they were accordingly had, and read there every postday, generally aloud to the company, who could sit and talk over the subject afterwards." the narrative goes on to say that "in march, 1711, the spectator came out, which was received and read here as the tatler had been." such are the beginnings of popular knowledge. what the tatler and spectator were to the gentlemen of spalding, the penny magazine and chambers' journal were to many a mechanic a hundred and twenty years after. one of this class has recorded the influence of such works, which addressed a far larger number than could be addressed at the beginning of the eighteenth century:—"the penny magazine was published. i borrowed the first volume, and determined {221} to make an effort to possess myself with the second. accordingly, with january, 1833, i determined to discontinue the use of sugar in my tea, hoping that my family would not then feel the sacrifice necessary to buy the book.... i looked as anxiously for the issue of the monthly part as i did for the means of getting a living."[27] it is this spirit in the great mechanical class of this country that, in spite of some popular reading that is corrupting, and much that is frivolous, will ultimately raise and purify even the meanest sheet of our cheap literature, and compel those who have the responsibility of addressing large masses of the people to understand that an influential portion do feel that the acquirement of knowledge is worth some sacrifice.

the 'complete catalogue of modern books, published from the beginning of the century to 1756,' contains 5280 new works. in this catalogue "all pamphlets and other tracts" are excluded. we can scarcely, therefore, compare this period, as to the number of books published, with that of 1680. the average number of the first 57 years of the 18th century was 93 new works each year. at the beginning of the century, the price of a folio or quarto volume ranged from 10s. to 12s.; an octavo from 5s. to 6s.; and a duodecimo from 2s. 6d. to 3s. we have the original 'tatler' before us, with its curious advertisements of books, sales by the candle, cordial elixirs, lotteries, and {222} bohea tea at 24s. a-pound. whitelocke's 'memorials,' folio, is advertised at 12s.; rowe's edition of shakspeare, 8vo., is 5s. per volume; 'the peerage of england,' 8vo., 6s.; shakspeare's poems, 12mo., 1s. 6d.; 'the monthly amusement,' each number containing a complete novel, is 1s.; sermons are 2d. each. we learn, from other sources, that the first edition of 'the dunciad' was a sixpenny pamphlet; whilst 'the governor of cyprus, a novel,' and 'the wanton fryar, a novel,' were each 12s. the number printed of an edition was, no doubt, very moderate, except chiefly of books that were associated with some great popular excitement. sacheverell's trial is said to have sold 30,000; as, in a later period, 30,000 were sold of burke's 'reflections on the revolution in france.' the old booksellers were cautious about works of imagination when they were expected to pay handsomely for copyright. the manuscript of 'robinson crusoe' was pronounced dangerous by the whole tribe of publishers, till one ventured upon an edition. the demand was such that the copies could only be supplied by dividing the work amongst several printers. one of defoe's numerous assailants, in attempting to ridicule him, gives the best evidence of his popularity: "there is not an old woman that can go to the price of it but buys 'the life and adventures,' and leaves it as a legacy with the 'pilgrim's progress.'" richardson's 'pamela,' published in 1741, sold five editions in one year. there are fabulous accounts of millar, the publisher, clearing {223} 18,000l. by 'tom jones.' in those times the dublin pirates were as assiduous in their plunder of english copyrights as the american publishers have been in plundering the english, and the english the american, in our days. richardson was driven wild by the publication of half 'sir charles grandison' in ireland, in a cheap form, before a single volume was issued in england. there was a regular system of bribery in the english printing-offices, through which the dublin booksellers organised their robberies. they sold their books surreptitiously in england and scotland; and from their greater cheapness they had the command of their own market. this system lasted till the union.

the prices of books do not appear to have much increased at the beginning of the reign of george iii. in some cases their moderation is remarkable. we have seen how small was the demand for the first volume of hume's 'history' in 1754. we have a number of 'the gazetteer and new daily advertiser' at hand, may 9, 1764; and there we learn, from an advertisement, what a change ten years had produced. a new edition of the third and fourth volumes, in quarto, is advertised at 1l. 5s.; but "the proprietor, at the desire of many who wish to be possessed of this valuable and esteemed history, is induced to a monthly publication, which will not exceed eight volumes." these volumes were 5s. each. it is manifest that the bookseller had found a new class to address {224} when he issued the monthly volumes. hume says, "notwithstanding the variety of winds and seasons to which my writings had been exposed, they had still been making such advances that the copy-money given me by the booksellers much exceeded anything formerly known in england." he had complained of the neglect of the "considerable for rank or letters." his publisher saw that a history with such charms of style—so freed from tedious quotations from state-papers and statutes—so unlike the great folios of carte and rapin—was a book for a new race of readers. coleridge humorously enough says—"poets and philosophers, rendered diffident by their very number, addressed themselves to 'learned readers;' then, aimed to conciliate the graces of 'the candid reader;' till, the critic still rising as the author sank, the amateurs of literature collectively were erected into a municipality of judges, and addressed as 'the town.' and now, finally, all men being supposed to read, and all readers able to judge, the multitudinous 'public,' shaped into personal unity by the magic of abstraction, sits nominal despot on the throne of criticism."[28] there is a great truth beneath the sarcasm. the enduring patronage of the public was beginning when andrew millar was bold enough to publish hume's history in monthly five-shilling volumes. but there are still many evidences that the commerce of books at that period, and subsequently, did not contemplate the {225} existence of a large class of buyers, beyond those who were at ease in their fortunes. in that farrago of sense and absurdity, 'the life of james lackington, the present bookseller, finsbury-square, london, written by himself' (1791), there is a remarkable disclosure of the mode in which books were prevented being sold cheaply, after the original demand had been satisfied:—"when first invited to these trade-sales, i was very much surprised to learn that it was common for such as purchased remainders to destroy one-half or three-fourths of such books, and to charge the full publication price, or nearly that, for such as they kept on hand. and there was a kind of standing order amongst the trade that, in case any one was known to sell articles under the publication price, such a person was to be excluded from trade-sales—so blind were copyright holders to their own interest." in the same manner, it is within the memory of many living persons that there was an invariable high price for fish in london, because the wholesale dealers at billingsgate always destroyed a portion of what came to market, if the supply were above the average. the dealers in fish had not recognised the existence of a class who would buy for their suppers what the rich had not taken for their dinners; and knew not that the stalls of tottenham court road had as many customers ready for a low price as the shops of charing cross for a high price. the fishmongers had not discovered that the price charged to the evening {226} customers had no effect of lowering that of the morning. nor had the booksellers discovered that there were essentially two, if not more, classes of customers for books—those who would have the dearest and the newest, and those who were content to wait till the gloss of novelty had passed off, and good works became accessible to them, either in cheaper reprints, or "remainders" reduced in price. but books and fish have one material difference. good books are not impaired in value when they are cheapened. their character, which has been established by the first demand, creates a second and a larger demand. lackington destroyed no books that were worth saving, but sold them as he best could. we have no quarrel with his self-commendation when he says, "i could almost be vain enough to assert that i have thereby been highly instrumental in diffusing that general desire for reading now so prevalent among the inferior orders of society."

what lackington thought "a general desire for reading" was, nevertheless, a very limited desire. "the inferior orders of society" who had the desire did not comprehend many of the mechanics, and none of the husbandry labourers. it may be doubted whether the magazine literature that the eighteenth century called forth ever went beyond the gentry and the superior traders. kippis says of the magazines, "they have been the means of diffusing a general habit of reading through the nation." there appears to have been a sort of {227} tacit agreement amongst all who spoke of public enlightenment in the days of george iii. to put out of view the great body of "the nation" who paid for their bread by their weekly wages. the magazines were certainly never addressed to this class. but for the general book-buyers of the time, cave's project of 'the gentleman's magazine' was a great step in popular literature. the booksellers would not join him in what they held to be a risk. when he had succeeded, and sold 10,000, then they set up the rival 'london magazine.' cave threw all his energy into the magazine, and was rewarded. "he scarcely ever looked out of the window, but with a view to its improvement," said johnson. 'the gentleman's magazine' commenced in 1731. then came, year after year, magazines "as plenty as blackberries:"—'the london,' 'the universal,' 'the literary,' 'the royal,' 'the complete,' 'the town and country,' 'the ladies',' 'the westminster,' 'the european,' 'the monthly.' the first popular review, 'the monthly,' was published in 1749, and 'the critical' in 1756. the public were now firmly established as the real patrons of letters. there was an end of poor authors knocking at great men's doors with a bundle of books. there was an end to paid dedications and gratulatory odes. johnson could afford to launch his dictionary without the help of the earl of chesterfield. hume became "not only independent but opulent" through the "copy-money" of the booksellers.

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the publication of collections of the poets was another proof of the extension of the reading public. the man who first projected such a collection went for cheapness. in 1777 john bell announced an edition of 'the poets of great britain; complete from chaucer to churchill.' the london booksellers, to the number of forty, held a meeting, to resist what they considered an invasion of their literary property—some works within the time of the statute of anne being legally theirs—others their copyright by courtesy. they resolved to combine their various interests; and they produced that edition of the poets, in 68 volumes, which is called johnson's, though, according to malone, he never saw a line of the text. the 'lives,' which johnson wrote for two hundred guineas, will endure as a great classic work, however deformed by hasty or prejudiced judgment. many of the poets given in the series have no pretension to be looked upon again, except as a part of literary history, which may show how the most feeble may attain reputation in an age of mediocrity. the booksellers spoke contemptuously of bell's edition, which they called "trifling." they boasted their superior printing; but they gave no place in their collection to chaucer, spenser, or donne, as bell had done. they did not care to direct the public taste;—they printed what they thought would sell. the demand for such collections has always been one of the proofs of a healthy condition of public intelligence; but the {229} want has not often been supplied with any judgment beyond that of the rude commercial estimate of the prevailing fashion in poetry. it is extremely difficult to deal with such matters. all literary students have a proper horror of abridgments and analyses. they want all of an author, or none. you can neither make chaucer extremely popular by an entire reprint, nor command a large sale by partial extract. but john bell was right, in 1777, to risk the printing of three great early poets, whilst the booksellers began with waller. here were poets that can never be wholly obsolete. but the rubbish called poetry that found its way, by trade preferences, into johnson's edition—the inanities of the drivellers between pope and gray—let not these be reproduced in our time, when such collections are coming again into fashion, and showing, as they showed before, an extension of readers.

the circulating library—what a revolution was that in popular literature! how this new plant appeared above the earth, where it first budded, where it bore its early fruit—how it grew into a great tree, like that in the old title to lilly's grammar, where the apples of knowledge are being gathered by little climbing-boys—would be difficult to trace and to record. there it was—this great economiser of individual outlay for books—in most market-towns at the beginning of the century. the universal adoption of the name is the best proof of the common recognition of the idea. it {230} changed the habits of the old country booksellers. it found them other occupation than keeping a stall in the market-place, as did their worthy forefathers. they dealt no longer in tracts and single sermons. it sent the chap-books into the villages. it made the 'seven champions of christendom' and 'the wise masters of greece' vulgar. it created a new literature of fiction. it banished 'robinson crusoe' to the kitchen, and 'the arabian nights' to the nursery. it built up great printing-houses in leadenhall-street; and held out high rewards for rapid composition, at the rate of five pounds per volume, to decayed governesses who had seen the world, and bank-clerks of an imaginative turn of mind. these could produce a wilderness of italian bandits, with unlimited wealth and beauty, who had won the hearts of credulous countesses, and only surrendered to the hangman when whole armies came out to take them. these could unveil all the mysterious luxuries of great mansions in grosvenor-square, or of sumptuous hotels in bond-street. there was ever and anon a "bright particular star" in the milky way of popular fiction. but the circulating library went on its own course, whether the empyrean of romance were dim or brilliant. "what have you got new?" was the universal question put to the guardian of the treasures of this recently-discovered world of letters. when the bower-maid of the luxurious fair one, who lolled upon the sofa through a long summer's day, as gray did when he was deep in crébillon, {231} came to "change" the book, great sometimes was the perplexity. it was not a difficult task to "change," but the newness was puzzling. the lady and the neat-handed phillis pursued their studies simultaneously. they did not like "poetry;" they did not like "letters." 'sir charles grandison' was as old and as tiresome as 'pamela.' 'tom jones,' and 'peregrine pickle;' they wondered why they were allowed to remain in the catalogue. they had read 'c?lebs in search of a wife'—the charming book—but they did not want it again. perhaps, suggested the bookseller's apprentice, 'the monk' might do once more. and so the circulating library went on, slow and struggling, till, about 1814, the unlucky desire for "something new" brought down to the little greasy collection, whose delusive numbers of volumes ranged from 1 to 3250, a new novel, with the somewhat unpromising title of 'waverley, or 'tis sixty years since.' at first, the lady upon the sofa, and the counsellor of her studies, could not endure it, for it was full of horrid scotch. it was often "at home," as the phrase went, for six months of its probation; when, somehow, it was discovered that a new book of wonderful talent had come out of the north. another and another came, and in a few years the old circulating library was ruined. the burneys, and edgeworths, and radcliffes, and godwins, and holcrofts, who had mixed with much lower company upon the librarian's shelves, still held a place. but the winters in london {232} and winters in bath, the midnight bells, the nuns, and the watch-towers, retired from business. there was then a new epoch in the circulating-library life. the literature of travels and memoirs timidly claimed a place by the side of the fashionable novel, which asserted its dignity by raising its price to a guinea and a half. the old legitimate stupidity, which did very well before the trade was disturbed, would no longer "circulate." but the names of the producers of the higher fiction were not "legion." "something new" must still be had. to meet the market, every variety of west-end authorship was experimented upon. the number to be printed could be calculated with tolerable exactness, according to the reputation of the writer,—and this calculation regulated the payment of copyright, from fifty pounds, and five hundred printed, to the man without a name, up to fifteen hundred pounds, and an impression of three thousand, to "the glass of fashion." but in this department of the commerce of literature,—as it will be in the end with every branch upon which the growth of popular intelligence is operating,—the rubbish is perishable, has perished; the good endureth.

the circulating library is now, in many instances, a real instrument of popular enlightenment. yet in some of the smaller towns, and in watering-places where raffles have their charm, and a musical performance is patronised in the 'fancy repository,' by "audience fit though few"—there the {233} circulating library may be studied in its ancient brilliancy. there, are still preserved, with a paper number on their brown leather backs, and a well-worn bill of the terms of subscription on their sides, those volumes, now fading into oblivion, whence the writers of many a penny journal of fiction are drawing and will still draw their inspiration. many of these relics of a past age will live over again in shilling volumes with new titles. the heroes and heroines will change their names; the furniture of the apartments in which they utter their vows of love will be modernised; every sentence which in the slightest degree approaches the vulgar will be softened down or obliterated. there is a great deal yet to be done in this way; and the metamorphosis will go on and prosper. in the mean while the circulating libraries, both in london and the provinces, are supporting a higher literature of fiction than those of the past generation; and they find also that there are other volumes almost as attractive as the last new novel. they are doing the same work as the book-clubs. both these modes of co-operation have had the effect of making the demand for a book that is at once solid and attractive more certain than the old demand by individual purchasers. the certainty of the demand necessarily produces a gradual reduction of price. an average demand is created, resulting from an average of taste in those who belong to book-societies and subscribe to circulating {234} libraries. but these channels for the sale of new books are not materially influenced by lowness of price. cheapness is greatly influential with the private purchaser; but very many are content with the reading of a new book, through the club or the library, who would never buy it for their own household. this first demand is one of the means by which good books may be cheapened for a subsequent large issue for the permanent home library. in 'the life of lackington' there is the following passage:—"i have been informed that, when circulating libraries were first opened, the booksellers were much alarmed; and their rapid increase added to their fears, and led them to think that the sale of books would be much diminished by such libraries. but experience has proved that the sale of books, so far from being diminished by them, has been greatly promoted; as from these repositories many thousand families have been cheaply supplied with books, by which the taste of reading has become much more general, and thousands of books are purchased every year by such as have first borrowed them at those libraries, and, after reading, approving of them, have become purchasers."

one of the first attempts, and it was a successful one, to establish a cheap book-club was made by robert burns. he had founded a society at tarbolton, called the bachelors' club, which met monthly for the purposes of discussion and conversation. but this was a club without books; for {235} the fines levied upon the members were spent in conviviality. having changed his residence to mauchline, a similar club was established there, but with one important alteration:—the fines were set apart for the purchase of books, and the first work bought was 'the mirror,' by henry mackenzie. dr. currie, the biographer of burns, in recording this fact, says, "with deference to the conversation society of mauchline, it may be doubted whether the books which they purchased were of a kind best adapted to promote the interest and happiness of persons in this situation of life." the objection of dr. currie was founded upon his belief that works which cultivated "delicacy of taste" were unfitted for those who pursued manual occupations. he qualifies his objection, however, by the remark, that "every human being is a proper judge of his own happiness, and within the path of innocence ought to be permitted to pursue it. since it is the taste of the scottish peasantry to give a preference to works of taste and of fancy, it may be presumed they find a superior gratification in the perusal of such works." this truth, timidly put by dr. currie, ought to be the foundation of every attempt to provide books for all readers. we are learning to correct the false opinions which, for a century or two, have been degrading the national character by lowering the general taste. those who maintained that taste was the exclusive property of the rich and the luxurious, could not take away from the humble {236} the beauty of the rose or the fragrance of the violet; they could not make the nightingale sing a vulgar note to "the swink'd hedger at his supper;" nor, speaking purely to a question of taste, did they venture to lower the noble translation of the bible, which they put into the hands of the poor man, to something which, according to the insolent formula of those days, was "adapted to the meanest capacity." a great deal of this has passed away. it has been discovered that music is a fitting thing to be cultivated by the people; the doors of galleries are thrown open for the people to gaze upon raffaelles and correggios; even cottages are built so as to satisfy a feeling of proportion, and to make their inmates aspire to something like decoration. all this is progress in the right direction.

in the year 1825 lord brougham (then mr. brougham), in his 'practical observations upon the education of the people,' explained a plan which has yet been only partially acted upon. "book-clubs or reading societies may be established by very small numbers of contributors, and require an inconsiderable fund. if the associates live near one another, arrangements may be easily made for circulating the books, so that they may be in use every moment that any one can spare from his work. here, too, the rich have an opportunity presented to them of promoting instruction without constant interference: the gift of a few books, as a beginning, will generally prove a sufficient encouragement to carry on the plan by weekly {237} or monthly contributions: and, with the gift, a scheme may be communicated to assist the contributors in arranging the plan of their association." simple in its working as such a plan would appear to be, the instances of these voluntary associations are really few. in scotland, lending libraries and itinerating libraries have, in some districts, been established successfully; but in england, lending libraries are scarcely to be found, except in connexion with schools, or under the immediate direction of the minister of a parish or of a dissenting congregation. in these cases, we fear, comes too frequently into action the desire, laudable no doubt, to promote "the interest and happiness of persons in this situation of life." they are not permitted to choose for themselves. the best books of amusement are kept out of their sight; and they contrive to get hold of the worst. the timidity which insists upon supplying these libraries with pattern books renders the libraries disagreeable, and therefore useless.