A system of more free and untaxed import of foreign-printed English works would, in various ways, introduce changes into the book-trade, and have a tendency to alter some of its traditional usages.
In Germany, where printing originated. the book•trade became also first established, arid the principal mart was Frankfort, to the fairs of which the early book :sellers and Printers resorted. Leipsie also became a great mart for books as early as 1680; yet this ancient city is only one of many places of book preparation in Germany. Among them Stuttgart has taken a front rank, since about 1830, as an agency place for the a. German book-trade, whilst Frankfort has now entirely lost its ancient prestige. Throughouttho different states of the German empire, more particularly Prussia and Saxony, printing and publishing are largely carried on; and from the various places of publication a great proportion of entire editions of works is transferred to Leipsie agents, who disperse the books throughout Germany, and all those countries for the book-trade of which the city of Lcipsic forms the nucleus. Hence arises the important peculiarity of German Lure, that literary, artistic, and scientific activity is not limited to or monopolized by any single city, and that, consequently, authors do not need to resort to a metropolis for encouragement or any professional labor. Formerly the book-sellers from the vari ous parts of Germany, and those countries which are dependent, in some measure, upon Germany, on account of affinity of language and identity of aspirations—such as Hol land, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc.a--used to meet at Leipsic twice a year. at Easter, and Michaelmas, with a view to exchange their respective publications, and arrange for settlement of mutual accounts. At present, business is done at Leipsie thrOugh a system of agencies by commissioners there established. Every book-aeller in Germany and the adjacent countries has his commissioner at Leipsic, and to him ho forwards packages containing copies of his new publication or publications, on sale or return, for all the book-sellers with whom he has an account. The commissioner then: distributes the packages among the Leipsie commissioners, every one of whom is thus; enabled, out of the packages flowing in every week, to make up a case for each of Ilia correspondents. At the end of the year, unsold hooks are returned to the various send ers by means of the Lcipsic agency. At Easter, during the fair, the ba]anees are now mostly paid by commissioner to commissioner, the German publishers not resorting as much as formerly to the fair; the extension of railway communication, and other circumstance.;
facilitating business, having somewhat changed the nature of the trade. The method of sending parcels of new works, on sale or return, may not he satisfactory according to English notions, but the advantages of the plan are obvious in various points of view. There is no country in the world achere literary and scientific novelties are so regularly made known and become noticed as in Germany. Let the book be what it may, within six weeks after its first publication it is known all over Germany, and, through the per sonal vigilance of the retailers, is brought everywhere under the uotice of those individ uals to whom the subject treated of may he of interest. This method of publication has the merit of great simplicity, and secures an exemption from that frightful expend iture on advertisements to make hooks known, which presses on the English publisher. On this account, as well as from the cheapness of paper and printing, and the simple way that books arc for the most part done up, the selling-prices of every variety of produc tion are very moderate. only drawback en the German publisher is the liability to heavy returns of unsold books; but this he doubtless endeavors to avert by professions/ tact in his speculations, and a good knowledge of the market. It is, at all events, the belief of those who are well acquainted with the German book-trade, that the method pursued not only furnishes books cheaper, but is more productive to author and pub lisher than that in England; and that iu point of good management and prosperity it exceeds, or at least equals, the book-trade in any other country. From the teeming press of baron Bernhard Tauchnitz of Leipsic has been issued a series of 1760 vol umes of cheap reprints of English popular works in a pocket size, which arc sold largely in Germany- and all other continental countries. It is proper, however, to say that, as there is an international copyright law between Germany and the United King dom, these Tauchnitz edition*, as they are termed, are issued in virtue of an honorable arrangement with English publishers and authors, and are accordingly not to be ranked with the piratical issues of the New York trade. Latterly the sale of German books in England. France. and North America has rapidly increased.