The "swinish multitude," as a term of reproach, in these days of ours is
gradually becoming less and less in vogue. There were times when
gentlemen were not ashamed to use it--when the people, degraded and
oppressed, demoralised by the vices of their superiors, were scorned for
the degradation which had been forced on them against their will. Not
voluntarily did the people give up its inherent rights and its divine
power. The struggle was long and severe before the man relinquished his
birthright, and sank into a savage or a sot. The divine in man had to be
expelled--the instinct in manhood had to be repressed--conscience had to
be seared--fatal habits had to be engendered--ere this final consummation
took place; and kings, with their brute force and men of war, and with
their priests slavish enough blasphemously to affirm the voice of the
king was the voice of God, found some trouble in effecting it. But they
succeeded in time. They fancied that at last they had controlled what
was as much beyond their control as the winds of heaven or the ocean's
stormy waves. They thought they had inscribed upon humanity at last the
proud command: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." Nor even did
the philosopher show himself above the delusion of the age. Gibbon, in
closing his story of Rome's decline and fall, pitied the future
historian, for whom would exist no parallel passages similar to those
which had lent such thrilling charm to his own eventful page. Adam Smith
calmly predicted the perpetuity of society as it then was, utterly
ignorant of the greatness and the glory yet to come. Yet hardly was the
ink dry which recorded these sage predictions, when they were singularly
falsified. Suddenly, without one word of warning, without one note of
preparation, a change came as the lightning flash. There was a shaking
amongst the dry bones--a hurrying to and fro of armed men in the imperial
halls of Versailles. The curls that clustered on the fair brow of the
daughter of the lion-hearted Maria Theresa in a night became grey. The
blood of the heir of a hundred kings was spilt like water. The storm
over, Europe witnessed a mighty change; old things had passed away, all
things had become new: the slavery of the past was gone; the vain
tradition of the elders was laughed to scorn: the political emancipation
of the people as an idea was already won, and the people--no longer dumb,
inarticulate, without intellectual life--conscious of its divine destiny,
became what it is. The clouds of ignorance were dispelled; wisdom lifted
up her voice in the street; knowledge tabernacled on earth. Hence even
the spread of a literature for the people--suited to their wants and
capacities--a literature they can buy, and read, and understand.
Some time back the _Times_ attempted to persuade us that our cheap
shilling volumes were doing us a world of harm. It was grievously
shocked to find that the people bought and read them, instead of its
healthy and stimulating columns. It thought we were really getting into
a very undesirable state. The _Times_ told us as proof, that we have now
translations of French trashy novels. We admit we have; but is that
anything new? Have we not always had a large class of readers of trashy
novels, French or otherwise? and even here have we not proof of progress?
Have not those very trashy novels lost the indecency which was their
characteristic at any earlier time? If we remember aright, Sir Walter
Scott states that a lady told him, in looking over some of the novels
which were fashionable in her youth she was utterly shocked at the
grossness which pervaded them, and that in that respect a most decided
improvement had taken place; and is this nothing? is this not a sign of
good? Nor is this the only sign; our sterling writers--the classics of
our land--are all published in a cheap form, so as to suit the pockets of
the people. The literature of the rail even is not so very bad after
all. Much of it is light and superficial, undoubtedly; nor is this to be
wondered at: the traveller must have something light, or he cannot read
at all. The book that requires thought is not for the rail, but the
quiet study. Your grave scholars, your most painful divines, now and
then put by the dictionary or the commentary, and read, it may be, the
_Times_. In both the same law operates. There are occasions when
reading for relaxation is a necessity: that necessity the railway
literature of the day supplies. But why should the _Times_ grow doleful
when it records the fact?--or rather the half-fact--for the whole truth
is more cheering. The whole truth is, that light reading spreads side by
side with reading of real merit--that the popular scientific discourse,
or history, circulates equally with the novel--not often so trashy after
all--for a cheap book must be a good book or it will not pay; and that
the more readers of light literature you have, the wider is the circle of
readers of better books. A cheap copy of Burns' Poem's might be sold at
a profit; we fear a cheap copy of poems by the critic in the _Times_
would produce a very different result. To write for the people, a man
must write well. The trashy novel, published in three volumes, with a
limited sale will pay; it would not published in a cheap form. Only a
large sale will remunerate; and a large sale is only the result of some
kind of merit.
For proof of this we refer to Paternoster Row. What the press is doing
we can best learn there. It is not a place of great pretensions
externally, but it has a history, and its fame reaches to the uttermost
ends of the earth. Paternoster Row is a short, dark, narrow street,
running parallel with Newgate Street and St. Paul's Church Yard.
Originally it was chiefly patronised by mercers, silkmen, and lacemen.
In the reign of Queen Anne the booksellers moved here from Little
Britain, and here, in spite of a few successful cases of transplantation
to the Strand, or Piccadilly, or Albemarle Street, or Great Marlborough
Street, do they chiefly remain. Here was the printing office of Henry
Samson Woodfall, the printer of the _Public Advertiser_, in which
appeared the celebrated letters of Junius. Some of the firms are very
old. The Rivingtons came here in 1710; the Longmans have been here a
century and a quarter; Simpkins and Marshall are dead and gone, but their
enormous business is still carried on under the old title, and on a
magazine day I believe their sales may amount to three thousand pounds.
How great is the business carried on here is obvious, when we remember
that the Messrs. Longmans' own sale of books has amounted to five
millions in one year, and that the annual distribution of books and
tracts by the Religious Tract Society, in 1853, was nearly twenty-six
millions. When Mr. Routledge could pay Sir Bulwer Lytton 2,000 pounds a
year for liberty to publish an eighteen-penny edition of his novels--when
the same publisher could offer Mr. Barnum 1,200 pounds for his
lectures--when for one edition alone, the illustrated, of Mr. Tennyson's
poems, their publisher, the late Mr. Moxon, could pay 2,000 pounds to the
poet--when one firm alone could subscribe for 4,000 copies of Dr.
Livingstone's Researches in Africa--when the paper duty for last year
amounted to no less a sum than 1,130,683 pounds, it is clear that there
must be no little business going on in Paternoster Row. I have before me
the London catalogue of periodicals and newspapers for the year 1859, and
I find that the monthlies are 353, the quarterlies 64, the newspapers and
weekly publications are more than 200. The British catalogue of books
published during the year 1851, including new editions, reprints, and
pamphlets, has 48 pages, each page containing a list of about 190 works,
thus giving us for that year alone 9,120 publications, not magazines or
newspapers. Most of the books and journals and magazines thus published
find their way into the provinces by means of Paternoster Row. On a
publishing day the scene is curious and suggestive; the shops of the
large wholesale houses are full, and customers are ranged on one side of
the counter in ranks three or four deep, while on the other are the
assistants toiling like so many slaves; but all the week, especially in
the middle, Paternoster Row is very eager and active. Each wholesale
house has collectors, who go to the respective publishers for the books
ordered. You may meet them at all hours between Paternoster Row and the
West. Each collector has a long bag on his back filled with books he has
been buying, and a book in his hand which contains entries of what he
requires. Some houses make a charge of five per cent. for collecting;
those who do not do so give their country clients but a month's credit.
The profits of the London houses are not large; they get 13 copies of a
work for 12, or 26 charged as 25, and then sell them to the trade at
their cost price, 25 per cent. off publishing price. If they are the
publishers as well they have the extra profit of ten per cent. for
publishing. If a book sells to any extent, the publishers and the trade
do well, much better than the poor author, whose obligations to the trade
are not great. Let me add that the publishers may do an author a little
benefit when they subscribe his book. This is done in the following
manner: the publisher, when he has a new book, sends it round to the
trade, stating the publishing price, and the terms at which he will
supply it to the trade. A paper is sent round with it for subscriptions;
the large houses, if the book be likely to sell well, subscribe for, in
some cases, 2,000 or 3,000 or 4,000 copies, and thus a good sale is
secured at first. The advantage of the subscription is, that the trade
have a quarter's credit, whereas in their usual transactions they pay
cash. This is almost the only speculative part of the business of the
houses that do not publish on their own account. It is clear that
occasionally they may encumber themselves with a book which does not
sell, and for which there is no demand, but this is very rarely the case.
The gentleman who buys for the house is generally wide awake, and will
not order a single copy more than he thinks he can sell with advantage,
and at once.
Let not my readers go away with the idea that the great bookselling
firms, proud of their traditions, plant themselves down in Paternoster
Row waiting for customers to come. Their business is no exception to the
general rule, which requires excessive pushing to keep pace with the
competition of rivals. They have travellers in all quarters of the
country--they publish catalogues and their terms, which are everywhere
disseminated among the trade--and an author may be sure that it is not
the fault of the booksellers that he is compelled to sell his crowning
work, rich in graphic colouring, in interesting detail, in noble thought,
in manly eloquence (I quote the author's private opinion), to Mr. Tegg or
the trunk maker. As I have mentioned Mr. Tegg, let me add, that it is
the province of that gentleman to relieve authors and publishers of works
which an apathetic public do not appreciate and will not buy. If Mr.
Tegg is so fortunate as to purchase the sheets (which he afterwards binds
up in a cheap form) at his own price, and sells them at the author's, he
ought by this time to be as rich as the Rothschilds or the Marquis of
Westminster. What he does with his bargains, I cannot tell. I see them
awhile in glaring colours, regardless of the suns of summer or winter
snows, adorning the cheap book-stalls of Holborn, or Fleet Street, or the
Strand, charming the eye of the juvenile population of the metropolis,
and offering them the advantages of a circulating library without the
inconvenience. I occasionally meet them in railway carriages, chiefly (I
do not write it disrespectfully) third class. I have met with them in
considerable numbers in our seaport towns, and then I miss them and
search for them in vain. Where are they? I believe I am not far wrong
in conjecturing that they are gone where there are
"Larger constellations burning,
Mellow moons, and happy skies;"
that they stimulate the intellect or soothe the leisure of muscular
gold-diggers at Ballarat; that pastoral New Zealanders read them with
delight; that they adorn the drawing-rooms of distant Timbuctoo. Let me
say a word for the authors of these works. Are they not true
philanthropists? Not one book in a hundred pays, yet in what countless
succession do they appear!
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London: Petter and Galpin, Belle Sauvage Printing Works, E.C.
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