The Press.
London, England, 1854-07-15 00:00:00

The Old Printer and the Modern Press. By
Charles Knight. London Murray.
IN this work, which is " affectionately" dedi-
cated to Mr. Charles Dickens, Mr. Knight has
given us a history of printing from the earliest
down to the present times; and, although it
necessarily contains nothing very new, much
interesting matter relating to authors, books,
and readers, is brought together within the
compass of a volume of 300 pages. The work
is divided into two parts, the first narrating the
progress of printing and " bookmaking" down to
the death of Caxton at the close of the fifteenth
century; the second•briefly sketching the his-
tory of popular literature from the days of
Elizabeth to the present period. As the his-
torical portion has been published before,• we
confine our notice to the commencement of the
new or cheap publishing system. Mr. Knight
dates its origin from the rise of " magazines,"
the precursors of literary reviews, in the reign
of the first Georges, when booksellers began
to supersede patrons, and dedications ceased
to be a source of pecuniary profit. The next
step was the establishment of • circulating
libraries, concerning the early history of which
we should have been glad of more information
than Mr. Knight supplies. He neither tells
us the date of their foundation, the success or
failure of the first experiments, nor their gra-
dual growth and increase up to the present
day. Surely in a history of popular literature
these things should not be omitted.
The last advance was made contempora-
neously by the Scotch publisher Constable,
and by Lord Brougham's " Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge." For many
years previously, according to Mr. Knight, the
price of books had been gradually rising.
"In the eleven years between 1792 and 1802
" there was an average publication of 372 new
" books yearly," being a multiplication four-
fold of the average number published half a
century earlier. But this increase was not
due to any reduction of cost. The octavo
volume had risen from ss. to 108.; the quarto
from 12s. to 215.; the duodecimo from 2s. 6d.
to 4s. And singularly it happened that this
double increase in production and price conti-
nued simultaneously for many years longer.
Between 1800 and 1827 the annual average of
publication was 588 books, not including re-
prints ; yet at the close of that period the
quarto cost 425., the octavo 145., the duode•
cimo not less than 6s. Copyrights were largely
paid for, the wages of labour had risen, and
the great publishers could not make up their
minds to try the experiment of small profits
and large sales. It was tried at last, with
ample success, so far as the world was con-
cerned, but with little reward to the origina-
tors except the consciousness of utility. Con-
stable, as all the world knows, failed in busi-
ness: the Penny Cyclopedia was a dead loss;
the " weekly volumes " of Mr. Knight, as he
himself allows, did not sell as expected, twenty
only reaching a sale of 10,000, and the average
being below 5,000. There is much exaggera-
tion, if there be some truth, in our modern
way of talking about the universal desire for
knowledge. Yet a vast advance has been
made, of which the proof is here. We have
seen what was the yearly amount of publica-
tion during the middle of the last century, at
its close, and in the period between 1800 and
- now trace its increase in later
Knight shall supply the facts
:
came out 312 books, in 1,105 volumes.
2,530 books, in 2,934 volumes.
an increase of nearly three to one.
'erage cost per volume of each
on was 12s. ; in 1853 it is a little

above estimate no account is taken
I, which have multiplied at a
rapid rate ; nor yet of the railway
which cannot yet be estimated.

1825. Let us
years. Mr. Kn
In 1828 there en.
In 1858
Showing at
In 1828 the avi
new publicatio
over 7s.
In the abov
of periodicals,
much more rai
publications, 1