The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1899-06-21
BOOksELLlNG, OLD AND NEW


hsh bookseller have been uttered
with frequency and not without
pathos in recent years. The change
that has come over his trade is as
marked as 1t seems likely to be per-
manent. Beginning among what
may he called the more modest
grades of the trade-the smaller
dealers in secondhand books-it has
extended upward to the finer shops,
but in degree has had effect proba-
bly, less as the scale rises. In the
smaller towns the change has been
even more marked than in London.
Not only has the subject risen to the
dignity of treatment in one of the
great monthly magazines of Lon
don, but The Academy has printed
reports about it from provincial cen
ters. The story scarcely varies in
its general tone, wherever it comes
from. Everywhere has the second
hand trade been bad-in Sheffield,
in Dundee, in Leeds, in Dublin.
In our own land much the same
conditions prevail, and from similar
causes. A tour of Nassau street will
not now disclose the same shops that
once were so numerous. Bookshops
are there. But if they are not less
numerous, the character of their
trade has changed. The chances of
finding rare volume on the side
walk stall have become extremely
few in that neighborhood.
This has naturally resulted from
the increase in collecting and In
knowledge of books. More and more
have the up town shops and the
auction rooms become the places
where collectors go to find rare and
first editions. Before it had become
large pursuit to hunt for these
books they were rarely to be found
up town, save at the small second
hand dealers in those dark base
ments of theirs and those Canal
street and avenue shops that were
once SO frequent. Now they may be
had in the best stores, where are
found thriving departments devoted
to these books and whence are is
sued special catalogues of them.
And with this change has come
another in the selling of books that
is new. No more remarkable infiu-
ence has entered the trade than the
influence of the dry goods stores,
where departments devoted to the
sale of the day 5 popular books have
grown to large proportions. But it
does not follow that the regular
bookstores in their totals of trade
have really suffered What they
may have lost in one direction they
have probably made up in others
for one thing in what are known as
collectors books, for another in fine
editions, in well bound books, and
again in limited editions. Moreover,
it is necessary to remember that the
number of persons who buy books
has enormously increased. The total
of books published and the total of
sales for each successful book pre-
sent striking contrasts to the CORE
spending totals for 10 and 20 years
ago. The sales which Du Maurier
and Maclaren, Hall Caine and Kip
ling, Stevenson and Mrs Ward have
had would have astonished the trade
and set all the world to writing
novels-as has now, unfortunately,
been done
The larger view of this change
will scarcely awaken regrets. Even
houses which have suffered from it
have probably seen way to other
profits and other methods which
have brought their compensations.
Meanwhile the public has bought
more books than ever before, has
read more, and the general level of
knowledge and culture has CORE
spondingly been raised. And this
increase will continue. Men more
and more are acquiring the laudable
habit of buying a book as willingly
as they buy handful of cigars, and
women one as willingly as they buy
a pair of gloves. New York Times.
Familiar lessons should be incor-