Evening star., 1901-12-28

her, spaces under book tables, where many
OF books, and had been swept clean. HALF
way up the wall on one side was a gall
lery, with book shelves as empty as the
tables. Miss Morris, with her eyes follow
ing ten clerks at once stood against a
table scantily covered with children's books.
Inc manager was evidently pleased to be
setting things to rights
Until we take stock and cast all our ac-
counts none of us will h9Ee any idea of the
whole number of books we have sold dur
ing thls rush, she said. But l know it
has been twice that of last year, at least.
1t has been very hard for us to keep our
shelves supplied, for toward the end of the
last week We took to ordering half dozen
books in the largest quantities the pub
fishers could send.
Quality of Juvenile Books Improved.
with us the chldrens books led every
thing else. We ordered 5000 volumes from
one firm, several hundred from another,
$50 from a third, 200 from fourth and
$1,000 from house that supplies only pa
per-bound books like Mother Goose and
Bluebeard. These two tables hold all that
are left. l don't believe we have ever been
so near sold out before.
people generally would be surprised to
know how the public knowledge of chill
drens books has grown in the past five or
six years. In the CID days a woman would
say, Give me Little Red Riding Hood for q
girl of twelve or Give me Tom Thumb
iOi a. ooy VI SiSHl ana so Oh. Nowadays
they want Kingsley's Water-babies, and
they want good-looking book When the
boys and girls get little older they buy
them something else. Henty's books are
still the best sellers for boys, and we have
handled more than 5000 this Christmas
alone. Then the quality of book-making
put into children's books has improved
wonderfully. don't see how children
could read the books which were sold
twenty years ago. They were poorly
bound, badly printed. miserably illustrated,
If Illustrated at all, and generally uninvit-
ing. But now the publishers give juvenile
BOOKS s much attention as they give any
other feature of their business, and it pays.
AS far as the form of the book is con-
cerned, you can get as fine volume among
works for children as you can in the adult
department.
Standard Writers in Favor.
THE substance of such books has been
changing also. Why, Hawthorne sells to-
day as we'll as any modern professional
author for children. The Wonder Book
and Twice Told Tales were very promi-
nent in our holiday trade. I wish some
publisher might have printed those two
books handsomely and cheaply and sold
them in set. They would nave sold out
in day. Next year some one wil-you
may be sure of that.
Hawthorne was not the only standard
author whose works went well. The pub
sets of Thackeray, Dickens George Eliot,
Charles Reade, Macaulay, Gibbons and
Hume and we had ourselves pretty well
stocked with them. Well, even we were
not prepared for the steady trade in them
which preceded the holidays. They were
not all cheap sets, ether-some of them
were mighty well printed. People are ap-
parently recovering from their devotion to
fiction exclusively. They want biography
and history well, with some DID, tried
and true stories like The Newcombs' ard
Our Mutual Friend thrown in for spice.
The fiction trade is still the supreme
consideration for grown-up folks, however.
We met the demand for up-to-date novels
without much difficulty at first We had
our storeroom to drasK s1tppn then, but as
Christmas day approached abe demand be-
came more pressing, and Mnally we had to
take books just as they Rere sent to US
fifty copies of this novel, twenty-five copies
of that and SO on. TheaRight of Way
had the right of way. CLOSE behind 1t came
'Dr'i and T. and UM Lloyd stories and
The Ruling Passion. s. There were "a hun
dred other books which Sold well. But
Christmas must have beensa Thanksgiving
day. for the publisherssof tAose six or eight
books in particular" IS