There is a mode, however, of testing whether cheap literature has destroyed the publication of new books, without in cluding reprints and pamphlets. We take the four years from 1829 to 1832, as computed by ourselves, from the Loudon Catalogues ; and the four years from 1839 to 1842, as computed by Mr. M'Culloch in the last edition of his Commercial Dictionary :— In the four years ending 1832 were pub lished, of new books, 6149 volumes ; in the four years ending 1842 were pub lished 8597 volumes. The cost of a single copy of the 6149 volumes was 3499/. ; of the 8597 volumes, 3780/. The average price per volume in the first period was 11s. 5d. ; in the second period, 94d.
Mr. M'Culloch has also given the following table of reprints, from 1839 to 1842 : Mr. M'Culloch adds : "From inquiries we have made with much care and labour, we find that, at an average of the four years ending with 1842, 2149 volumes of new works, and 755 volumes of new editions and reprints (exclusive of pam phlets and periodical publications), were annually published in Great Britain ; and we have further ascertained that the publication price of the former was 8s. 94d., and of the latter 8s. 2d. a volume. Hence, if we suppose the average im pression of each work to have been 750 copies, it will be seen that the total value of the new works annually produced, if they were sold at their publication price, would be 708,498/. Ss. 9d., and that of the new editions and reprints, 231,2181. 15s. We believe, however, that if we estimate the price at which the entire impressions of both descriptions of works actually sells at 4s. a volume, we shall not be far from the mark ; and if so, the real value of the books annually produced will be 435,600/. a year." But the most remarkable characteristic of the press of this country is its periodical literature. It might be asserted, without exaggeration, that the periodical works issued in Great Britain during one year comprise more sheets than all the books printed in Europe from the period of Gutenberg to the year 1500.
The number of weekly periodical works (not newspapers) issued in London on Saturday, May 4, 1844, was about sixty. Of these the weekly sale of the more important amounts to little less than 300.000 copies, or about fifteen millions annually. The greater number of these are devoted to the supply of persons who have only a very small sum to expend weekly upon their home reading.
Of the weekly publications, independ ent of the sale of many of them in monthly parts, we may fairly estimate that the annual returns are little short of 100,0001.
The monthly issue of periodical litera ture from London is unequalled by any similar commercial operation in Europe. 227 monthly periodical works were sent out on the last day of May, 1844, to every corner of the United Kingdom, from Paternoster Row. There are also 38 periodical works published quarterly : making a total of 265.
A bookseller, who has been many years conversant with the industry of the great literary hive of London on Maga zine-day, has favoured us with the fol lowing computations, which we have every reason to believe perfectly accu rate :— The periodical works sold on the last day of the month amount to 500,000 copies.
The amount of cash expended in the purchase of these 500,000 copies is 25,0001.
The parcels dispatched into the country, of which very few remain over the day, are 2000.
The annual returns of periodical works, according to our estimate, amount to 300,0001. Mr. M'Culloch estimates them at 264,0001.
The number of newspapers published in the United Kingdom, in the year 1843, •he returns of which can be obtained with the greatest accuracy through the Stamp Office, was 447. The stamps consumed by them in that year were 60,592,001. Their proportions are as follows : 1843.
79 London newspapers . 31,692,092 212 English provincial . 17,058,056 8 Welsh . . . . 3.39,500 69 Scotch . . . . 5,027,589 79 Irish . . . . 6,474,764 447 60,592,001 The average price of these papers is, as near as may be, fivepence ; so that the sum annually expended in newspapers is about 1,250,0001 The quantity of paper required for the annual supply of these newspapers is 121,184 reams, some of which paper is of an enormous size. In a petition to the pope in 1471, from Sweynheim and Pannarta, printers at Rome, they bitterly complain of the want of demand for their books, their stock amounting to 12,000 volumes ; and they say, " You will admire how and where we could procure a sufficient quantity of paper, or even rags, for such a number of volumes." About 1200 reams of paper would have produced all the poor printers' stock. Such are the changes of four centuries.
We recapitulate these estimated annual returns of the commerce of the press New books and reprints . £435,600 Weekly publications, not news papers 100,000 Monthly publications . 300,000 Newspapers . . . . 1,250,000 £2,085,600 The literary returns of the United Kingdom, in 1743, were unquestionably little more than 100,0001. per annum.
What has multiplied them twenty-fold ? Is it the contraction or the widening of the market—the, exclusion or the dif fusion of knowledge P The whole course of our literature has been that of a gradual and certain spread from the few to the many—from a luxury to a necessary—as much so as the spread of the cotton or the silk trade. Henry VIII. paid 12a a yard for a silk gown for Anne Boleyn—a sum equal to five guineas a yard of our day. Upon whom do the silk-mercers now rely—upon the few Anne Boleyn, or the thousands who can buy a silk gown at half-a-crown a yard ? The printing-machine has done for the com merce of literature what the mule and the Jacquard-loom have done for the commerce of silk. It has made literature accessible to all.