States, in Feb. term, 1818. V. 3. 4th ed., ed., with notes and references to later decisions, by F: C: Brightly. N. Y. and Albany, Banks & Bros., 1883. 17+322 p. O. shp., $3.50. Witt, C. Classic mythology; a translation, with the author's sanction, of Prof. C. Witt's Griechische Götter und Heldensgeschichten by Frances Younghusband; with a preface by Arthur Sidgwick; supplemented with a glossary of etymologies and related myths. N.Y., H: Holt & Co., 1883. 28+268 p. D. cl., $1.25. JOHN B. ALDEN, N. Y. Farrar, The early days of Christianity.... Trollope, The commentaries of Cæsar. ORDER LIST. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co., Boston. 15 Satchel guide to Europe, ed. for 1883. 35 HARPER & BROS., N. Y. Alden, Cruise of the Canoe Club...... Dobson, Fielding. Gaskell, Mary Barton (H. F. S. L., 308). Newell, Games and songs of American children ELIAS CHILD, N. Y. Child, Genealogy of the Child family.... 5.00 CO-OPERATIVE BUILDING PLAN ASSOC., N. Y. How to build a house. 50 35 .... 1.25 1.25 1.75 80 FORDS, HOWARD & HULBERT, N. Y. Campbell, The housekeeper's year-book. THE GILBERT Book Co., St. Louis, Mo. Hobby, Treatise on Texas land law!. 7.50 Watts, Laws of the State of Missouri.... 1.00 GINN, HEATH & Co., Boston. Straight, Aim of industrial education.... 15 50 1.00 75 20 A collection of legends about the Greek gods and heroes, taken from many sources, but chiefly from a Greek writer, Apollodorus, who lived in the second century B.C., and collected the old mythological tales. Many were also taken from the poems of Hesiod and Homer, and from the trage dies of Sophocles, much care being exercised in these cases, as the book is intended to be placed in the hands of children. They will be found both entertaining and instructive, howGermany with great favor by the public and press, not ever, to students of any age. The book was received in merely on account of the intrinsic beauty of the stories, but for the skill shown in the selection, and for the author's related myths has been added by the American pubsimplicity of style. The glossary of etymologies and lishers. 1.50 HENRY HOLT & Co., N. Y. Chelsea (A) householder (L. H. S., 147), $1 Same (L. M. S., 5)... 30 Freeman, Son.e impressions of the U. S. 1.50 Porter. Constitutional hist. of the U. S... 1.50 Witt, Classic mythology.... 1.25 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, Baltimore, Md. Ingle, Parish institutions of Maryland... 40 ... .$1.25 2.00 2.00 2.00 PRESBYTERIAN BD. OF PUB., Phila. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, N. Y. 1.00 Ford, American citizen's manual, pt. 2... 1.00 1.00 3.00 3.50 3.25 10 50 1.25 30 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.25 2.00 1.25 2.00 1.00 1.50 SAMPSON, DAVENPORT & Co., Boston. McCosh, Development SHELDON & Co., N. Y. Everts, Pastor's hand-book, rev. ed..... F. H. THOMAS & Co., St. Louis. Lawson, Concordance of words and phrases, net. 1.50 50 I.00 75 Armitage, E. Lectures on painting. Il. cr. 7s. 6d.... Barratt, A. Physical metempiric. 8°. 1os. 6d. 8.00 Published from March 16 to 31. Abbott, E. A. Hints on home teaching. Post 8°. 234 P., .Seeley. 8°. 256 p., Trübner. 35... LIST OF NEW ENGLISH BOOKS. Williams & N. Low. On evolution, mind and matter, the atomic theory, monads, etc. Batley, A. W. Series of studies for domestic furniture, decoration, etc. Imp. fol., 52s. 6d.. Bentley, R. Dissertations on the epistles of Phalaris, Themistocles, Socrates, Euripides, and the fables of Æsop; ed., with an introd. and notes, by the late W. Wagner. 12°. 620 p., 5s. (Bohn's Classical Library.) Bell & S. Brown, J. C. The forests of England, and the management of them in bygone times. Post 8°. (Edinburgh, Oliver & B.), 268 p., 6s..... ..Simpkin. Cook, D. Nights at the play: a view of the English stage. 2 v., post 8°. 668 p., 21s. Chatto. A selection of theatrical criticisms contributed during the last fifteen years to the Pall Mall Gazette and World. Cope, W. H. Bramshill its history and architecture. Cr. 4°. 215... Infield. English catalogue of books for 1882. Containing a complete list of all the books published in Great Britain and Ireland in the year 1882, with their sizes, prices, and publishers' names; also of the principal books published in the United States of America; with the addition of an index to subjects. 8°. 5s... ...Low. Evans, G. An essay on Assyriology. 8°. 55. Williams & N. Geldart, E. M. A guide to modern Greek. Post 8°. 286 p., 7s. 6d. Key, 2s. 6d.... ....Trübner. Gibb, E. J. W. Ottoman poems. Translated into English verse in the original forms, with introd., biog. notices, and notes. Fcp. 4°. 18s. (Glasgow.) Wilson & McCormick. Grimm, J. Teutonic mythology. Translated from the 4th ed., with notes and appendix, by James Steven Stallybrass. V. 2, 8°. 450 p., 15s.. .. Bell & S. Hatherley, Baron. A memoir of the Rt. Hon. William Page Wood. Baron Hatherley, with selections from his correspondence. Ed. by his nephew, W. R. W. Stephens. 2 v., post 8°. 610 p., 21s ..Bentley. Hope, A. J. B. Beresford. Worship and order. 8°. 314 P., 9S..... Murray. Papers on ecclesiastical questions read at church meetings, and articles reprinted from the Church Quarterly and other magazines. EDGAR S. WERNER, Albany, N. Y. Hyde, J. N. A practical treatise on diseases of the skin, for the use of students and practitioners. 8°. 560 p., 175. Churchill. Lowe, W. H. The Mishnah, on which the Palestinian Talmud rests. Ed. for the syndics of the University Press, from the unique manuscript preserved in the University Library at Cambridge. Add. 470-1. 8°. 246 p., Cambridge Warehouse. 21S.. Selected from the [London] "Publishers' Circular." Maistre, X. de. A journey round my room. From the French, with a notice of the author's life. 12°. 140 P., 2s. 6d. (Mayfair Library.)................... .......Chatto. Malleson, G. B. The decisive battles of India. from 1746 to 1849 inclusive. With a portrait of the author, a map, and 3 plans. 8°. 432 p., 18 s........ W. H. Allen. Marcet, W. On the principal Southern and Swiss health resorts their climate and medical aspect. Cr. 8°. 7s. 6d. Churchill. THOS. WHITTaker, N. Y. Cross, Coals from the altar.... WEST PUBLISHING CO., St. Paul, Minn. Northwestern reporter, v. 14 .$5.00 WILLIAM WOOD & Co., N. Y. Carpenter, Index of the practice of medicine, subs., $2.50; interleaved............ 60 1.50 3.50 Miall, Prof. Charles Darwin his life and work. Cr. An alphabetical list of the birds mentioned by the poets, with selections from their writings, and notes and essays by the author. Rosmini. Life of Antonio Rosmini Serbati, founder of the Institute of Charity. By Gabriel Stuart Macwalter. V. 1, 8°. 476 p., 125 .Paul. Smith, J. C. Christian work: being recollections of several years of labor and prayer. Cr. 8°. 3s. 6d. 7. Blackwood. With 360 il. o Churchill Stimson, L. A. A treatise on fractures. wood. 8°. 610 p., 21s.. Story, A. T. Historical legends of Northamptonshire. Cr. 8°. 166 p., 4S... L. N. Fowler, Veitch, J. Sir William Hamilton: the man and his philosophy. 12°. 68 p., 2s....... ....Hamilton. Virgilius: Part of accessions catalogue. 25. British Museum. Walmsley, H. E. Cotton-spinning: a practical treatise. 8°. (Manchester, A. Heywood) 130 p., ss. ....Simpkin. Warneck, G. Modern missions and culture: their mutual relations. From the German by Thomas Smith. Cr. 8°. 415 p., 4s. 6d..... .(Edinburgh) Gemmell. West, S. How to examine the chest: a practical guide for the use of students. 12°. 212 p., 5s....... Churchill. Wooder, J. The aesthetic and modern æstheticism: a popular history of society as affected by thought, culture, and art. Post 8°. (Cheltenham, Marshall) 176 p., 2s. 6d.; sewed, 25... ..Simpkin. CATALOGUES RECEIVED. From C. N. Caspar, Milwaukee, Wis. :-Lager-Katalog deutscher Bücher, No. 15, 1883. 48 p. D pap. From Clarke Bros., 68 and 69 Bible House, N. Y. :-Descriptive catalogue of the works of Dio Lewis. 32 p. S. pap. From H. Gregory, 133 Westminster St., Providence, R. I.-Clearance catalogue of standard and miscellaneous books. 8 p. T. pap. From Joseph McDonough, 30 N. Pearl St., Albany, N. Y. -Catalogue of books, new and second-hand. No. 24, April, 1883. 52 p. nar. O. pap. From Pickwick & Co. (Rufus C. Hartranft), 1429 Market St., Phil. :-Pickwick's Catalogue. No. 1, [of new and second-hand books in the departments of drama, poetry, history, science, Americana, and miscellaneous.] 20 p. S. pap. The Publishers' Weekly. APRIL 28, 1883. PUBLISHERS are requested to furnish title-page proofs and advance information of books forthcoming, both for entry in the lists and for descriptive mention. An early copy of each book published should be forwarded, to insure correctness in the final entry. The trade are invited to send " " Communications to the editor on any topic of interest to the trade, and as to which an interchange of opinion is desirable. Also, matter for "Notes and Queries" gratefully received. In case of business changes, notification or card should be immediately sent to this office for entry under "Business Notes. New catalogues issued will also be mentioned when forwarded. "Every man is a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men do of course seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves by way of amends to be a help thereunto."-LORD BACON. CHEAP BOOKS.* From the Hour, April 21. THE increase in the number of books published in the United States, as shown by comparison of the lists of the past five years with those of the five years immediately following the period of the civil war, is the most significant fact in the history of printed literature. Not many more books have been written than in the preceding five years, but all that were of general interest, written in English, and not from the pens of American authors, have been sold in quantities many times as great as would have been printed a few years ago. But these have formed but small part of the general aggregate; every well-known English book that, after the flush of first publication here, sold at the rate of a few hundred copies per year has been republished and sold by tens of thousands. Dickens, Carlyle, Thackeray, Ainsworth, George Eliot, Dumas, Miss Muloch, Macaulay, Miss Braddon, Tyndall, Tennyson, Huxley, Browning-the strong and the weak, the light and the heavy, historians, essayists, poets, and novelists, have found a new set of readers. To disabuse any mind of the impression that the buyers of the new reprints want only light literature it is sufficient to say that the solid English reviews, reprinted here in the new shape, sell more largely than in their original form in England. The secret of the extraordinary increase in the demand for books lies in the cheapness of the new publications. There are at least six "libraries, so called, in which twenty cents is the highest price charged, at retail, for any book, except in case of some enormous work, like Sue's "Wandering Jew." More than one half of the cheap reprints have been retailed at ten cents per copy. The form in which most of them have been issued is not the most pleasing that could be devised, and the type is small, but form, paper, and typography are fully as good as those of that favorite American library known as the newspaper; within a year, however, there have appeared two or three series in ordinary book shape and type, yet with little or no increase of price, the cost ranging from fifteen to twenty-five cents. At such prices the poorest man can afford to read, and among the two thousand or more volumes already issued in very cheap form he can find, if not everything he wants, at least a great. deal that pleases him. Instead of subscribing to a public library and finding, nine times in ten, that the book he wants is out," he cam for the same amount of money per year buy outright twenty or thirty books. In the great literary awakening caused by the publication of books at very low prices the American author gains nothing. His books are still sold at prices that restrict them to the hands of the favored few. A volume of Carlyle may be bought at the price of a glass of whiskey, but a volume of Emerson, whom the American reader usually prefers to the Scotch philosopher, is as costly as a pint bottle of champagne. Swinburne's poems can be bought for ten cents; the poems of Swinburne's most graceful and enthusiastic American reviewer, Mr. Stedman, are published at ten times as much. The latest and in some respects the best biography of Oliver Cromwell may be bought of any news agent for thirty cents; where can an American buy a good "Life of Washington" for a price that at all approaches this? Hume's England" or Gibbon's "Rome" can be had for a little morethan a dollar; Bancroft's or Hildreth's .6 His-tory of the United States," in about as many pages as Hume or Gibbon, costs more than ten dollars. "" Read in this connection the communication, by Mr. William R. Jenkins in our last issue. 1 Some American publishers explain the difference by saying that the publishers of the cheap books are "" pirates"-that they pay nothing to authors, whereas the American publisher pays. copyright; hence the American book must be dearest. This statement is only partly true.. There are some utterly unscrupulous pirates in the book business, but there are also publishers. of cheap "libraries" who pay for advance sheets. to the foreign authors a good price. When an American book is published in accordance with an agreement to pay the ten per cent of retail price on all copies sold, as is the case with nineteen twentieths of all published, the American publisher need not labor under a disadvantage of more than five cents per copy in competing with reprints of foreign works-a disadvantage that would amount to nothing. The difference between the prices of reprints and American books has put the public under the impression that the publishers of copyrighted books clear several hundred per cent profit. There never was a greater mistake, as many publishers know to their sorrow. Suppose a publisher finds a novel that he thinks should sell and issues an edition of two thousand copies (very few novels in bound form sell more) at the retail price of a dollar. Of this edition he must give away about three hundred copies to editors for review; the remaining seventeen hundred, if all sold at the discounts demanded and really needed by the retail dealers, will bring him about one thousand dollars. Out of this sum he must pay for type-setting and stercotyping at least three hundred dollars; for paper, press work and binding about five hundred dollars more; then, if he pays the author ten per cent-ten cents per copy-on those sold, he will have left about thirty dollars with which to pay for advertising and to cover a proper share of the cost of his time, rent, insurance, sult the wants of the reader or the man who buys a book for immediate use. In a word, it is not the book-hunter but the book-reader who ought to be first regarded. As to magazines, where one number is carefully cut and laid away for binding, probably a dozen are torn open with whatever implement is at hand. As to books, the proportion of cloth-bound books which are rebound in choice and durable bindings is small, and it would be smaller if a little more pains were taken with the cloth covers. An extra expenditure of two or three cents in strengthening the back of a book makes all the difference between a book which will drop to pieces after a little handling, and one which will stand wear. Most people would rather have the money spent in that way than in fantastic decorations for the covers. The publishers of some magazines bear in mind the tastes of different classes of readers by giving them the option of having their numbers with the edges cut or uncut. The same thing should be practicable with all, and book publishers might do the same, or else reserve some copies of their books in sheets, so that And the reason for all this is that money and literary taste are so seldom found together that the people who read cannot afford to buy books at the prices that have ruled until recently. Look, for instance, at a single class: nearly every one of the hundred thousand teachers in the United States would like to own the works of the best American writers, but not one in fifty can spare enough from their small salaries to buy the books of a single author. Thousands of them, however, buy every cheap reprint they care for ; so do thousands of underpaid clergymen, strug-people who are able to indulge themselves in luxugling lawyers, poor clerks, mechanics, and working women. No wonder, then, that Messrs. Holmes, Whittier, and Aldrich, in their remonstrance to Congress against the removal of duties from foreign books, expressed the fear that American readers were being educated by foreign writers. But Congress is powerless, for books are not imported to any great extent. The English author sells an advance copy to an American publisher, who prints the book here, so the tariff law cannot reach him. rious bindings can do so satisfactorily. The desire for uncut books has extended to stationery, and produced that atrocity called " ragged-edge note-paper;" but, the caprices and follies of fashion aside, there is nothing prettier, neater, or more convenient than smooth and clean-cut edges. The average reader does not carry paper-cutters on his person, nor has he the leisure or the inclination to use them. Put an uncut book or magazine in his hands, and the chances are that he will either abridge his reading of it, or run a relentless and beauty-destroy. ing finger between its leaves. bad debts, etc. If he sells the whole edition he will not make a penny unless he compels the author to forego royalties on the first thousand copies; even then he will not clear five per cent on his investment. But should the book become popular, as perhaps one American novel in twenty does, he will make a little money. We have used the novel for purposes of illustration because it is of the class on which most money is made; were poetry the contents of the supposititious volume, the publisher would not escape without serious loss unless he had discovered "the coming man. "" The hundreds of thousands of purchasers of cheap reprints would absorb millions of copies of American books had publishers the courage to issue not only new books, but their standard works, in form as cheap as the cheapest. The authors would be benefited, for at the customary royalty of one tenth of retail price they would obtain more on large and cheap editions than on the present form, which, to the mass of readers, is practically that of an édition de luxe, the price of which limits the sale. The author would further have the delicious but at present unfamiliar sensation of knowing that his books were being largely read. One or two publishers are said to be already thinking of venturing in this direction, printing from a single set of plates one edition on cheap paper and in pamphlet binding, and another in better style and cloth covers. On the willingness of others to adopt the same plan depends the future of the American author, and to a great extent, the American publisher. THE MANIA FOR BIG BOOKS. From the Saturday Review. "6 THE present mania for big books and limited editions will doubtless wear itself out in time; and already there are signs that the genuine reader is becoming weary of buying his literature by weight. At first there is a certain pleasure in owning a 'tall copy," no matter how useless its contents; and the pleasure is increased when we are assured that only a couple of hundred other people can possibly possess the same book in the same form. But the joy is not forever; a book is not any the more readable or enjoyable because it can only have a few readers, and even the luxury of margin and binding is sometimes doubtful in taste and incontestably detrimental to real study. The modern éditions de luxe, despite the care and cost devoted to them, are somehow failures when compared with the old tall copies. The Foulis Virgil of 1778, to take a late and well-known example, is a pleasure to look at, and even (in moments of physical vigor) to read. Its fine clear type fits its page, its margins are not out of proportion, and the two volumes are not so thick as to be unwieldy or break their backs. There is a harmony about the whole work which satisfies the taste. In our modern large editions we go on a different and, as we think, a very inferior principle. A fine edition now means putting a splash of small ignoble type in the middle of a staring expanse of white paper-paper, as a rule, dignified with the title of "hand-made," on the strength of its being too thick and stiff to turn over properly or lie flat, as it should. We heap ! UNTRIMMED BOOKS. From the Boston Journal, April 17. 1 It is encouraging to find, in one of the foremost book-trade journals, an energetic protest against the practice of publishing books and magazines with their edges uncut. The practice is a revival or a survival of an old English custom, originating in the supposed necessity of having a book in good shape for rebinding; and there is a kind of a fashion about it which causes uncut copies of books to be particularly dear to the hearts of bibliophiles. But it is argued with good reason that in publishing books or magazines which are intented for a wide circulation, the publisher should, in the first instance, con "" these buckram pages together till they make a clumsy volume, which we put into a white vellum or parchment or calico binding that soils with the slightest touch; we scrawl some glaring inscription over the sides, and call the result an édition de luxe! Artistically the thing is a mistake. The letterpress should fit the page, in spite of all we have heard of the "neat rivulet of text meandering through a meadow of margin; and there can be no doubt that though margins there must be-and good margins, too-they must be in strict proportion to the size of the page. Too much margin, though better than too little, is still a fault, and in this, as in everything else, est modus. But a grave error is the modern custom of putting small type in big pages, and trusting to the wide margins to make amends. The type as well as the margin must be proportioned to the page, and big books ought to be in big type. As it is, we fail to see the beauty or the use of such monster volumes as are now the fashion. It is all very well to have a fine large DR. THOMAS D. SUPLÉE, of Gambier, Ohio, edition of the great English classics-like those says the Critic, "is preparing for the press an of Fielding and Thackeray recently published-edition of the Biography and Poems of the late such volumes form an appropriate mural deco- Col. Richard Realf, the profits of which will be ration for " every English gentleman's library," given to the poet's heirs. Dr. Suplée would be as the conventional country-house smoking-room glad to hear from any one who has in his possesis called; but if we want to read our classical sion any of Realf's poems or letters, or who can authors, we shall probably turn to some more tell anything about the facts of his life." portable edition. PROHIBITION OF DIME LITERATURE. THE Hon. Abel Goddard, member of the New York Assembly from St. Lawrence, has made a bid for immortality by introducing into that body a bill of which the following is the chief part : Any person who shall sell, loan, or give to any minor under sixteen years of age any dime novel or book of fiction, without first obtaining the written consent of the parent or guardian of such minor, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment or by a fine not exceeding $50. The length of the imprisonment is apparently left to the discretion of the magistrate, and if he were the peer of Mr. Goddard in this quality he might sentence an offender to imprisonment for life for this heinous offence, for all that appears in the bill. It will also be observed that no definition is given of " book of fiction," so that as the bill stands it prohibits one from giving a copy of "The Pilgrim's Progress" to a minor without the written consent of his parent or guardian. The Examiner has never failed to lift up its voice against the demoralizing tendency of much of the fictitious literature of the day, but such crude legislation as this is worse than dime novels. Besides, the bill does not touch the worst class of demoralizing reading, the flash newspaper. JULES SANDEAU, the French Academician, novelist, and play-writer, is dead. He was born at Aubusson, in 1811, became a law student in 1831, when he met Georges Sand and entered into literary partnership with her; and was elected to the French Academy in 1858. He has acquired a wide fame from his intimate associations with famous authors as well as from his 66 writings. Some of his novels, such as 'Ma- | MR. J. A. SYMONDS has nearly completed a new volume of sonnets which he calls " Vagabunduli Libellus." NOTES ON AUTHORS. MR. A. C. SWINBURNE calls his new volume of poems on various subjects "A Century of Roundels." MR. WILLIAM WINTER has written an article on the stage for the June number of The North American Review. MR. JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON is at work on Life," which will be published during the season the "Real Lord Byron-New Views of the Poet's by Hurst & Blackett, London. ROBERT W. LOWE, No. 12 Woodburn Terrace, Edinburgh, is making a bibliography of literature relating to the stage, and asks information concerning any rare books or pamphlets on the subject. |
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