A large increase in the volume of the English book trade followed upon the foundation I if Slu Circulating Library, in 1842, its orders fre quently amounting to several thousand copies of a single work. and the total number of volumes in it being counted by millions. although the sur plus copies of popular books are usually disposed of to smaller libraries when the first demand is over. In this connection it is natural to speak of the practice (eommon in England throughout the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, and generally abandoned at its close) of publishing nearly all novels originally in three volumes, which largely increased the number of volumes published. The railway bookstall business, con ducted for so many years all over England by W. If Smith & Sons. was another characteristic fea ture of book distribution in England during the Nineteenth Century. Statistics show a steady increase in the number of works annually pub lished. In 1901 this reached the large total, in the United States, of 5496 new books and 2645 new editions: in England, of 4955 new books and 10,89 new editions. The English figures, probably owing to temporary causes. are the lowest for several years: thus the number of new books was 5760 in 1900, and reached 6244 in 1897.
The business of selling books at second hand is a special branch, requiring a large amount of bibliographical knowledge, and bringing in profits frequently out of all proportion to the origi nal investment. It developed to large propor tions in the Nineteenth Century, owing to the growth of systematic collection of hooks, espe cially first editions. The famous sale of the Duke of Roxburghe's library occurred in 1S12. Among the treasures which that library con tained was the only known perfect copy of the earliest dated edition of Boccaccio's Ifreameron (Christ. Valdarfer. Venice, 1471). After a spir ited competition with Lord Spencer, Lord Bland ford purchased it for £2260, a higher price than had ever been paid for a single book. Books of the first printers, especially Gutenberg and Fust, bring enormous prices. (Inc of their Bibles (called Mazarin, from the discovery of the first e.ipy in Cardinal Mazarin's iibrary) brought £2690 in 1873; and eleven years later a splendid copy on vellum was sold for 13900. At the same
sale a beautiful Psalter (Psalmorum Codex). printed by Fust and Schoetfer in 1459, brought i4950. Caxtons also run high, the Eneydos go ing at 12:350 in 1885. Many collectors are, how ever, satisfied with first editions of comparatively recent writers; the first obscure publications of authors afterwards famous are also in great de mand. in 1900 Poe's Tamer/one and Other Poems (Boston, 1827), of which only three copies are known to exist, sold for $2050. Other recent noteworthy sales are those of the Pickering edi tion of Walton's Comp/cat .1 nylcr, at $2870: of The Troublesome Raignc of John, King of Eng land (1591), at £510; a first folio Shakespeare (1623), at £1720, the record price for this book; and Bunyan's Progress. Part 1., first edition, at £1475. The beautiful books from Wil liam Kelmscott Press, usually reproduc tions of the old masters, are much sought after. In 1901 a Chaucer on vellum (1896) sold for £510.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Birt, has antike Biieherwesen Bibliography. Birt, has antike Biieherwesen ( Berlin, 1882 ) : Schmitz, Sehriftstellcr and Buchhiindler in Athen nod int iibrigca Grieehen. bind (Heidelberg, 1876) ; llaenny, Sehriftsteller and Buchhiindler ini alten Root (Leipzig, 1885) ; Curwen, History of Booksellers (London, 1873) ; Lempertz. Bildcrliefte zur Geschichte des Bucher handels (Cologne, 1853-65) ; Roberts. The Earlier Ilistory of British Bookselling (London, 1889) ; Knight, Shadows of tlie Old Booksellers (London. 1865) : Andrews, The Old Booksellers of New York (New York, 1895) ; Lawler, Book Auctions in England in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1898) ; Derby, Fifty Years Among Authors, Books, and Publishers (New York, 1884) ; Be sant, The Pen and the Book (London, 1899) ; Growoll, Book-Trade Bibliography in the Nine teenth Century (New York. 189S) : Dibdin, Bib liomania (London, 1811) ; Fitz Gerald, The Book Fancier (London, ISM) ; Burton, The Book-Hunt er (New York, 1882) ; Kapp, Oeschiehte des deut sch en B ((eh handcls (Leipzig, 1SS(3) ; Thomas, History of Printing in. America (Albany, 1874) ; Arber, Transcript of the Stationers' Registers (London, 1894).