The Library Series
EDITED BY
DR. RICHARD GARNETT
IV
PRICES OF BOOKS
The Library Series
EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTIONS, BY DR. RICHARD GARNETT
I. THE FREE LIBRARY: Its History and Present Condition. By J.
J. OGLE, of Bootle Free Library. Cloth, 6s. net.
II. LIBRARY CONSTRUCTION, ARCHITECTURE, AND FITTINGS. By F. J.
BURGOYNE, of the Tate Central Library, Brixton. With 141
Illustrations. Cloth, 6s. net.
III. LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION. By J. MACFARLANE, of the British
Museum. Cloth, 6s. net.
IV. PRICES OF BOOKS. By HENRY B. WHEATLEY, of the Society of
Arts. Cloth, 6s. net.
PRICES OF BOOKS
AN INQUIRY INTO THE CHANGES IN THE PRICE
OF BOOKS WHICH HAVE OCCURRED IN
ENGLAND AT DIFFERENT PERIODS
BY
HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A.
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1898
[_All rights reserved_]
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The history of prices is one of the most interesting subjects that can
engage research. As language has been called fossil poetry, from which
the primitive workings of the mind of man may be elicited, so the story
of his progress in material well-being lies enfolded in the history of
the prices which have at various periods been procurable for
commodities, whether of prime necessity, of general utility, or simply
ornamental. The prices of books, so ably investigated and recorded by
Mr. WHEATLEY in the following pages, are a small but significant
department of a great subject. If we had no record of the price of any
other article of commerce, we should still perceive in them an index to
the world’s advance in wealth, taste, and general intelligence. With
every allowance for the fall in the value of money, it would yet be
manifest that prices could now be afforded for books which at an earlier
period would have been out of the question; and not less so that while
some classes of books had risen in worth with the enhanced standard of
wealth, others had accommodated themselves to the requirements of the
poor. We should trace the effect of mechanical improvements in
diminishing the prices of things, and of fashion and curiosity in
augmenting them. We should see the enormous influence of scarcity in
forcing up the value of products, while we should learn at the same time
that this was not the sole agent, but that intrinsic merit must usually
to some extent co-operate with it, and that prices must bear some
relation to the inherent reason of things. It must, for instance, have
been entirely unforeseen by the early printers that the books which they
advertised with such exultation as cheaper than the manuscripts they
were superseding would in process of time become dearer, but we can
discern this metamorphosis of relative value to have been rational and
inevitable. Finally, the fluctuations of price would afford a clue to
the intellectual condition of the age. Observing, for example, the great
decline which, as a rule, has taken place in the value of early editions
of the classics, we should conclude that either the classical writers
were less generally esteemed than formerly, or that such progress had
been made in their study that the old editions had become inadequate;
and both conclusions would be well founded.
Books occupy a middle position between ordinary products and works of
art. Like the latter, they are in theory the offspring of an exceptional
talent. The humblest bookman views himself as in some measure the
superior of his readers for the time being; he would have no excuse for
addressing them if he did not suppose himself able to convey to them
some pleasure which they could not have attained without him, or to
inform them of something, however insignificant, which but for him
would have remained unknown. But whereas in the arts price is usually in
the ratio of the real or supposed intellectual merit of the production,
in books it may almost be said that the reverse rule obtains. The fine
picture or statue cannot be reproduced as an original work; copies may
be made to any extent, but no amount of copying impairs the value of the
unique original. Again, such a work, whether absolutely perfect or not,
once finished is complete for all time, and allows of no further
improvement. But the book admits of indefinite multiplication, and the
extent to which this proceeds is commonly in the ratio of its
intellectual worth. It is the very greatest authors, the Homers, the
Shakespeares, that are usually the easiest and cheapest to procure.
It appears, therefore, that, although great books unquestionably demand
more intellectual power for their production than great works of art,
their very superiority tends to cheapen them in comparison by
encouraging their dissemination. There could not be a stronger instance
of the power of scarcity in determining price; and, in fact, the rarity
of a book is the most important element in its commercial worth. Yet
intrinsic desert plays its part, though an inferior one. There are some
cases in which it utterly fails. The commercial value of the productions
of the Dutch prototypographers, for example, would probably not be
augmented in the least if they could be transformed from fragments of
dull lesson-books into leaves from sages and poets. The Papal Bulls
relating to the Turks in Cyprus, which have the honour to be the first
documents to have issued complete from an European press, would hardly
gain in commercial value if they were briefs announcing the foundation
of the Vatican Library, or official announcements of the fall of
Constantinople. On the other hand, the first edition of Virgil, one of
the rarest of books, would assuredly be less valued if, while equally
rare, it were the _editio princeps_ of a Latin author of inferior
reputation. In general, the celebrity of an author will be found a
considerable factor in determining the value of a book; but while rarity
without celebrity will effect much, celebrity without rarity, or some
other adventitious circumstance devoid of relation to the intellectual
value of the book, will effect very little.
Many other circumstances besides scarcity will contribute to render a
book highly prized, and consequently dear. Some of these are obvious at
once, such as fine paper, fine print, fine binding, or the autograph of
a celebrated man. A book will be valued because it has been the subject
of a judicial condemnation, or because it is a copy containing a plate
in general deficient or mutilated, or perhaps only because it has an
erratum corrected in other copies. Mr. Sidney Lee’s recent discovery of
a unique peculiarity in the Baroness Burdett-Coutts’ Shakespeare folio
may probably have doubled the value of the book. Sometimes such causes
are very singular. King Charles the First dropped a pamphlet into the
mud; the stain remains to this day, and centuples the value of a tract
which would have been only deteriorated if it had slipped from the
fingers of a lord-in-waiting. Such a fact introduces the element of
sentiment, a powerful factor, and one of far-reaching influence; for the
Quaker or Freemason who collects literature interesting to his society,
or the local patriot who buys up the books printed in his native town,
sets others upon collecting them too, and raises the value all round.
Next to scarcity and great beauty, nothing, perhaps, imparts such
stability to the worth of a book as to be addressed to a small but
well-defined circle of readers. Books on chess and angling are familiar
instances. They are not too numerous to dismay a collector, and every
one differs from the rest in some feature sufficient to make it
indispensable to a collector ambitious of completeness.
A certain description of books would excite lively interest if they
could be identified with certainty, those which are not valuable now,
but which are about to be. It may probably be considered that almost any
book which can manage to exist for five hundred years will find itself
augmented in value at the end of this period, but some classes will have
proved much better investments than others. Two may be signalised with
considerable confidence--illustrated books, which portray the fashions
and humours of the age for posterity, and newspapers. Nothing grows in
value like a newspaper; the sheets of to-day, which, perhaps, contain
nothing of interest to any contemporary reader, will be priceless to the
historian and antiquary of the centuries to come. They fructify in
silence, and imperceptibly make their possessor rich. Their intellectual
as well as their pecuniary value augments by lying still. Nothing so
faithfully depicts an age for its successors; they are worth all the
histories and all the novels. Their preservation--which involves their
assemblage in one place for the sake of accessibility and of comparison
with each other and with books--is a momentous trust, neglect of which
would strike a heavy blow at historical, archæological, and sociological
research, and inflict a grievous injury upon the ages to come.
R. GARNETT.
_March 1898._
PREFACE
The subject of the prices of books is one which always exercises a
certain fascination over the minds of book-lovers, although some have
expressed their objection to any discussion of it, lest this should have
the effect of enhancing prices.
In a single volume it is impossible to deal with so large a subject in
any fulness of detail, and I have therefore endeavoured to give a
general view, merely instancing a few cases in illustration of the
whole, but making an exception in respect of two of the most interesting
and high-priced classes of books in literature, namely, the productions
of the press of Caxton, and the original editions of Shakespeare’s
works.
It is necessary for the reader to bear two points in mind--
(1) That the value of money has changed during each century of our
history to an extent not easy to calculate with precision, because the
prices of all articles have not been equally affected. We can say
generally that definite incomes a hundred years ago were equivalent in
worth to twice their nominal amount at the present day, and that those
of two hundred years ago would be worth about five times as much. In the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries money was worth ten or twelve times
what it is now, but there is some difficulty in calculating correctly
the rates respectively of necessaries and luxuries. This is a matter for
experts, and cannot be more than alluded to here, as a warning to the
reader that he must always remember that a pound or a shilling in
previous centuries was of more value than it is to-day, and possessed a
much greater purchasing power.
(2) That in dealing with prices we are interested with rare and
specially valuable books. Ordinary standard books, even in good
editions, were never cheaper than at present.
A writer of a work of this kind must feel grateful to predecessors, who
have made it possible for him to gather satisfactory material for his
purpose. Special gratitude is due to Thomas Frognall Dibdin, Hartwell
Horne, and William Clarke (author of the _Repertorium Bibliographicum_),
who were all thorough workers in this field. The labours of Dibdin have
been unjustly depreciated by many modern writers. His works, besides
being among the most beautiful books produced in Europe, are mines of
bibliographical anecdote and useful literary information. Objections may
be made by some to his descriptions, but he certainly greatly
influenced the bibliomania of a former age, and made many sales famous
which otherwise would have been forgotten except by the few.
There is a gap in the literature of our subject between authors at the
beginning of the century and the modern writers, who largely obtain
their information from French sources.
H. B. W.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION 1