BOOKSELLER, one who trades in books, whether he prints them himself, or gives them to be printed by others.
Booksellers are in many places ranked among the members of universities, and entitled to the privileges of students, as at Tubingen, Saltsburg, and Paris, where they have always been distinguished from the vulgar and mechanical traders, and exempted from divers taxes and imposi tions laid upon other companies.
The traffic of books was anciently very inconsiderable, insomuch that the book merchants, both of England, France, and Spain, and other countries, were distin guished by the appellation of siatiollers, as having no shops, but only stalls and stands in the streets. During this state, the civil magistrates look litttle notice of the 000ksehers, leaving the government of them to the universities, to whom they were supposed more immediate retain ers; who accordingly gave them laws and regulations, fixed prices on their books, examined their correctness, and punished them at discretion.
But when, by the invention of printing, books and booksellers began to multiply, it became a matter of more consequence, and the sovereigns took the direction of them into their own hands ; giving them new statutes, appointing officers to fix prices, and grant licences, privileges, &c. Authors frequently complain of the arts of booksellers. Lord Shaftsbury gives us the process of a literary contro versy blown up by the booksellers The publication of books depends much on the taste and disposition of booksellers. A mong the German writers, we find per petual complaints of the difficulty of pro curing booksellers : many are forced to travel to the book fairs at Frankfort or Leipsic, to find booksellers to undertake the impression of their works.