THE INVENTION OF PRINTING The modern system of bookselling dates from soon after the introduction of printing. The earliest printers were their own edi tors and booksellers; but being unable to sell every copy of the works they printed, they had agents at most of the seats of learn ing. Antony Koburger, who introduced the art of printing into Nuremberg in 147o, although a printer, was more of a bookseller ; for, besides his own 16 shops, we are informed by his biographers that he had agents for the sale of his books in every city of Chris tendom. 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 Reforma tion 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 pur chase or possession of an unlicensed book was a punishable of fence. 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 ex ercised 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 pre rogatives; and towards the end of her reign, and during that of her successor, 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 Com monwealth. An order of parliament in 1643 provided that no book should be printed or "put on sale," "unless the same be first approved of and licensed" by the persons appointed by the Gov ernment. Booksellers' shops were even liable to be raided in the search for contraband books. It was against this order that Milton wrote his Areopagitica (1644). 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, etc., 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 '694.
In the first English Copyright Act (1709), which specially re lates to booksellers, it is enacted that, if any person shall think the published price of a book unreasonably high, he may there upon 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 is for every copy sold. Apparently this enactment remained a dead letter.
In the course of the i6th and i7th centuries the Low Countries for a time became the chief centre of the bookselling world, and many of the finest folios and quartos in our libraries bear the names of Jansen, Blauw or Plantin, with the imprint of Amster dam, Utrecht, Leiden or Antwerp, while the Elzevirs besides other works produced their charming little pocket classics. The south ern towns of Douai and St. Omer at the same time furnished polemical works in English.
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 mss. and who are the intermediaries between author and bookseller. 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 litera ture has often been very great. The convenience of this distinc tion 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 19°2, by the London Times, of the supplementary volumes to the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia 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 19o5) was, again, a combination of a subscrip tion 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 i9th century it remains the fact that thc distinction between publisher and bookseller—literary promoter and shop keeper—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 ioo years been the centre of this industry, may be seen the collectors from the shops of the retail booksellers busily engaged in obtain ing 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 ob tained concerning it. At one of these establishments over i,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, 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 a more specialized class of business, re quiring a knowledge of bibliography, while the transactions are with individual books rather than with numbers of copies. Oc casionally 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 most recent enactment that affects the second hand bookseller is that directed against the underhand so-called "knock-out" system, by which at great book-sales, a ring of buyers conspired to bid low and buy in the books at knock-out prices. The periodical trade grew up during the 19th century, and was in its infancy when the Penny Magazine, Chambers' Journal and similar publications first appeared. The growth of this im portant part of the business was greatly promoted by the abolition of the newspaper stamp and of the duty upon paper, the intro duction of attractive illustrations, and the facilities offered for purchasing books by instalments.