page_title: History of bookselling
section_title: Modern bookselling
hierarchical_section_title: History of bookselling / Modern bookselling
caption_attribution_description: English: Interior of the buffet of Metz railway station, nowadays transformed into bookshop. Français&#160;: Intérieur du buffet de la gare de Metz aujourd'hui transformé en librairie.
context_page_description: The selling of books dates back to ancient times. The founding of libraries in 300 BC stimulated the energies of the Athenian booksellers. In Rome, toward the end of the republic, it became the fashion to have a library, and Roman booksellers carried on a flourishing trade.
context_section_description: The modern system of bookselling dates from soon after the introduction of printing. Through the new mechanized process for printing, books became more affordable. By the nineteenth century, the model of bookselling as we know it began to emerge. A professional group of booksellers in Leipzig decided to form their own association in 1824, and in 1825 the Börsenverein der Deutschen Buchhändler zu Leipzig became the first group to publish outside of the printer's guilds, leading to more people joining the profession without needing to be attached to a guild. The earliest printers were also editors and booksellers; but being unable to sell every copy of the works they printed, they had agents at most of the seats of learning, such as Anton Koberger, who introduced the art of printing into Nuremberg in 1470. The most common types of books printed in large quantities were able to be cheaply produced like catechisms and almanacs and often not bound at all.
  The religious dissensions of the Reformation in 16th-century continental Europe and the English Reformation in England under Henry VIII and Edward VI fostered a great demand for books; but in England governments of both the Tudor and Stuart dynasties feared a free press and made various efforts to control the distribution of printed materials.
  The first patent for the office of king's printer was granted to Thomas Berthelet by Henry VIII in 1529, but only such books as were first licensed were to be printed. At that time even the purchase or possession of an unlicensed book was a punishable offense. In 1556 the Company of Stationers was incorporated, and very extensive powers were granted in order that obnoxious books might be repressed. In the following reigns the Star Chamber exercised a rather effectual censorship; but, in spite of all precautions, such was the demand for books of a polemical nature, that entrepreneurs and subversives printed many abroad and surreptitiously introduced them into England.
  In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the Low Countries for a time became the chief centre of the bookselling world, and many of the finest folios and quartos in our libraries bear the names of Jansen, Blauw or  Plantin, with the imprint of Amsterdam, Utrecht, Leiden or Antwerp, while the  Elzevirs produced - besides other works - their charming little pocket classics. The southern towns of Douai  and Saint-Omer (both in present-day France) at the same time furnished polemical works in English.
  Queen Elizabeth (r. 1558–1603) interfered little with books except when they emanated from Roman Catholics, or touched upon her royal prerogatives; and towards the end of her reign, and during that of her successor, James (r. 1603–1625), bookselling flourished. So much had bookselling increased during the Protectorate of 1653–1659 that in 1658 William London published A Catalogue of the most Vendible Books in England. A bad time immediately followed. Although there were provincial booksellers, the centre of the trade was St. Paul's Churchyard. When the Great Fire of London began in 1666 the booksellers put most of their stock in the vaults of the church, where it was destroyed. The Restoration of 1660 restored the office of Licenser of the Press, which continued until 1694.
  The first British copyright statute, the Statute of Anne (1709), which specially relates to booksellers, enacted that, if any person shall think the published price of a book unreasonably high, he may make a complaint to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to certain other persons named, who shall examine his complaint, and if well founded reduce the price; and any bookseller charging more than the price so fixed shall be fined £5 for every copy sold. The complaint procedure prescribed in this statute was apparently never used.
  Modern book-selling has changed dramatically with the advent of the computer. With major websites such as Amazon, eBay, and other book distributors offering affiliate programs, book sales can be facilitated through an affiliate program.
caption: In many parts of the world, bookstores—like this one in the train station in Metz, France—are often found in transport facilities.
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