London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

Of the Character of Books of the Street-sale.

There has been a change, and in some respects a considerable change, in the character or class of books sold at the street-stalls, within the last 40 or 50 years, as I have ascertained from the most experienced men in the trade. Now sermons, or rather the works of the old divines, are rarely seen at these stalls, or if seen, are rarely purchased. Black-letter editions are very unfrequent at street book-stalls, and it is twenty times more difficult, I am assured, for street-sellers to pick up anything really rare and curious, than it was in the early part of the century.

One reason assigned for this change by an intelligent street-seller was, that black-letter or any ancient works, were almost all purchased by the second-hand booksellers, who have shops and issue catalogues, as they had a prompt sale for them whenever they could pick them up at book-auctions or elsewhere. “Ay, indeed,” said another book-stall keeper, “anything scarce or curious, when it’s an old book, is kept out of the streets; if it’s not particular decent, sir,” (with a grin), “why it’s reckoned all the more curious,—that’s the word, sir, I know,—‘curious.’ I can tell how many beans make five as well as you or anybody. Why, now, there’s a second-hand bookseller not a hundred miles from Holborn—and a pleasant, nice man he is, and does a respectable business—and he puts to the end of his catalogue—they all have catalogues that’s in a good way—two pages that he calls ‘Facetiæ.’ They’re titles and prices of queer old books in all languages—indecent books, indeed. He sends his catalogues to a many clergymen and learned people; and to any that he thinks wouldn’t much admire seeing his ‘Facetiæ,’ he pulls the last leaf out, and sends his catalogue, looking finished without it. Those last two pages aren’t at all the worst part of his trade among buyers that’s worth money.”

In one respect a characteristic of this trade is unaltered; I allude to the prevalence of “odd volumes” at the cheaper stalls,—not the odd volumes of a novel, but more frequently of one of the essayists—the “Spectator” especially. One stall-keeper told me, that if he purchased an old edition of the “Spectator,” in eight vols., he could more readily sell it in single volumes, at 4d. each, than sell the eight vols. altogether for 2s., or even 1s. 4d., though this was but 2d. a volume.

“There’s nothing in my trade,” said one street-bookseller with whom I conversed on the subject, “that sells better, or indeed so well, as English classics. I can’t offer to draw fine distinctions, and I’m just speaking of my own plain way of trade; but I call English classics such works as the ‘Spectator,’ ‘Tatler,’ ‘Guardian,’ ‘Adventurer,’ ‘Rambler,’ ‘Rasselas,’ ‘The Vicar of Wakefield,’ ‘Peregrine Pickle,’ ‘Tom Jones,’ ‘Goldsmith’s Histories of Greece, Rome, and England’ (they all sell quick), ‘Enfield’s Speaker,’ ‘mixed plays,’ the ‘Sentimental Journey,’ no, sir, ‘Tristram Shandy,’ rather hangs on hand, the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ (but it must be sold very low), ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ ‘Philip Quarles,’ ‘Telemachus,’ ‘Gil Blas,’ and ‘Junius’s Letters.’ I don’t remember more at this moment, such as are of good sale. I haven’t included poetry, because I’m speaking of English classics, and of course they must be oldish works to be classics.”

Concerning the street sale of poetical works I learned from street book-sellers, that their readiest sale was of volumes of Shakespeare, Pope, Thomson, Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Byron, and Scott. “You must recollect, sir,” said one dealer, “that in nearly all those poets there’s a double chance for sale at book-stalls. For what with old editions, and new and cheap editions, there’s always plenty in the market, and very low. No, I can’t say I could sell Milton as quickly as any of those mentioned, nor ‘Hudibras,’ nor ‘Young’s Night Thoughts,’ nor Prior, nor Dryden, nor ‘Gay’s Fables.’ It’s seldom that we have any works of Hood, or Shelley, or Coleridge, or Wordsworth, or Moore at street stalls—you don’t often see them, I think, at booksellers’ stalls—for they’re soon picked up. Poetry sells very fair, take it altogether.”

Another dealer told me that from twenty to thirty years ago there were at the street-stalls a class of works rarely seen now. He had known them in all parts and had disposed of them in his own way of business. He specified the “Messiah” (Klopstock’s) as of this class, the “Death of Abel,” the “Castle of Otranto” (“but that’s seen occasionally still,” he observed), the “Old English Baron” (“and that’s seen still too, but nothing to what it were once”), the “Young Man’s Best Companion,” “Zimmerman on Solitude,” and “Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful” (“but I have that yet sometimes.”) These works were of heavy sale in the streets, and my informant thought they had been thrown into the street-trade because the publishers had not found them saleable in the regular way. “I was dead sick of the ‘Death of Abel,’” observed the man, “before I could get out of him.” Occasionally are to be seen at most of the stalls, works of which the majority of readers have heard, but may not have met with. Among such I saw “Laura,” by Capel Lloftt, 4 vols. 1s. 6d. “Darwin’s Botanic Garden,” 2s. “Alfred, an Epic Poem,” by H. J. Pye, Poet Laureate, 10d. “Cœlebs in search of a Wife,” 2 vols. in one, 1s.

The same informant told me that he had lived near an old man who died twenty-five years ago, or it might be more, with whom he was somewhat intimate. This old man had been all his life familiar with the street trade in books, which he had often hawked—a trade now almost unknown; his neighbour had heard him say that fifty to seventy years ago, he made his two guineas a week “without distressing hisself,” meaning, I was told, that he was drinking every Monday at least. This old man used to tell that in his day, the “Whole Duty of Man,” and the “Tale of a Tub,” and “Pomfret’s Poems,” and “Pamela,” and “Sir Charles Grandison” went off well, but “Pamela” the best. “And I’ve heard the old man say, sir,” I was further told, “how he had to tread his shoes straight about what books he showed publicly. He sold ‘Tom Paine’ on the sly. If anybody bought a book and would pay a good price for it, three times as much as was marked, he’d give the ‘Age of Reason’ in. I never see it now, but I don’t suppose anybody would interfere if it was offered. A sly trade’s always the best for paying, and for selling too. The old fellow used to laugh and say his stall was quite a godly stall, and he wasn’t often without a copy or two of the ‘Anti-Jacobin Review,’ which was all for Church and State and all that, though he had ‘Tom Paine’ in a drawer.”

The books sold at the street-stalls are purchased by the retailers either at the auctions of the regular trade, or at “chance,” or general auctions, or of the Jews or others who may have bought books cheap under such circumstances. Often, however, the stall-keeper has a market peculiarly his own. It is not uncommon for working men or tradesmen, if they become “beaten-down and poor” to carry a basket-full of books to a stall-keeper, and say, “Here, give me half-a-crown for these.” One man had forty parts, each issued at 1s., of a Bible, offered to him at 1d. a part, by a mechanic who could not any longer afford to “take them in,” and was at last obliged to sell off what he had. Of course such things are nearly valueless when imperfect. Very few works are bought for street-stall sale of the regular booksellers.