London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

Of the Experience of a Street Book-seller.

I now give a statement, furnished to me by an experienced man, as to the nature of his trade, and the class of his customers. Most readers will remember having seen an account in the life of some poor scholar, having read—and occasionally, in spite of the remonstrances of the stall-keeper—some work which he was too needy to purchase, and even of his having read it through at intervals. That something of this kind is still to be met with will be found from the following account:

“My customers, sir, are of all sorts,” my informant said. “They’re gentlemen on their way from the City, that have to pass along here by the City-road. Bankers’ clerks, very likely, or insurance-office clerks, or such like. They’re fairish customers, but they often screw me. Why only last month a gentleman I know very well by sight, and I see him pass in his brougham in bad weather, took up an old Latin book—if I remember right it was an odd volume of a French edition of Horace—and though it was marked only 8d., it was long before he would consent to give more than 6d. And I should never have got my price if I hadn’t heard him say quite hastily, when he took up the book, ‘The very thing I’ve long been looking for!’ Mechanics are capital customers for scientific or trade books, such as suit their business; and so they often are for geography and history, and some for poetry; but they’re not so screwy. I know a many such who are rare ones for searching into knowledge. Women buy very little of me in comparison to men; sometimes an odd novel, in one volume, when its cheap, such as ‘The Pilot,’ or ‘The Spy,’ or ‘The Farmer of Inglewood Forest,’ or ‘The Monk.’ No doubt some buy ‘The Monk,’ not knowing exactly what sort of a book it is, but just because it’s a romance; but some young men buy it, I know, because they have learned what sort it’s like. Old three vol. novels won’t sell at all, if they’re ever so cheap. Boys very seldom buy of me, unless it’s a work about pigeons, or something that way.

“I can’t say that odd vols. of Annual Registers are anything but a bad sale, but odd vols. of old Mags. (magazines), a year or half-year bound together, are capital. Old London Mags., or Ladies’, or Oxford and Cambridges, or Town and Countrys, or Universals, or Monthly Reviews, or Humourists, or Ramblers, or Europeans, or any of any sort, that’s from 40 to 100 years old, no matter what they are, go off rapidly at from 1s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. each, according to size, and binding, and condition. Odd numbers of Mags. are good for little at a stall. The old Mags. in vols. are a sort of reading a great many are very fond of. Lives of the Princess Charlotte are a ready penny enough. So are Queen Carolines, but not so good. Dictionaries of all kinds are nearly as selling as the old Mags., and so are good Latin books. French are only middling; not so well as you might think.”

My informant then gave me a similar account to what I had previously received concerning English classics, and proceeded: “Old religious books, they’re a fair trade enough, but they’re not so plentiful on the stalls now, and if they’re black-letter they don’t find their way from the auctions or anywhere to any places but the shops or to private purchasers. Mrs. Rowe’s ‘Knowledge of the Heart’ goes off, if old. Bibles, and Prayer-books, and Hymn-books, are very bad.” [This may be accounted for by the cheapness of these publications, when new, and by the facilities afforded to obtain them gratuitously.] “Annuals are dull in going off; very much so, though one might expect different. I can hardly sell ‘Keepsakes’ at all. Children’s books, such as are out one year at 2s. 6d. apiece, very nicely got up, sell finely next year at the stalls for from 6d. to 10d. Genteel people buy them of us for presents at holiday times. They’ll give an extra penny quite cheerfully if there’s ‘Price 2s. 6d.’ or ‘Price 3s. 6d.’ lettered on the back or part of the title-page. School-books in good condition don’t stay long on hand, especially Pinnock’s. There’s not a few people who stand and read and read for half an hour or an hour at a time. It’s very trying to the temper when they take up room that way, and prevent others seeing the works, and never lay out a penny theirselves. But they seem quite lost in a book. Well, I’m sure I don’t know what they are. Some seem very poor, judging by their dress, and some seem shabby genteels. I can’t help telling them, when I see them going, that I’m much obliged, and I hope that perhaps next time they’ll manage to say ‘thank ye,’ for they don’t open their lips once in twenty times. I know a man in the trade that goes dancing mad when he has customers of this sort, who aren’t customers. I dare say, one day with another, I earn 3s. the year through; wet days are greatly against us, for if we have a cover people won’t stop to look at a stall. Perhaps the rest of my trade earn the same.” This man told me that he was not unfrequently asked, and by respectable people, for indecent works, but he recommended them to go to Holywell-street themselves. He believed that some of his fellow-traders did supply such works, but to no great extent.

An elderly man, who had known the street book-trade for many years, but was not concerned in it when I saw him, told me that he was satisfied he had sold old books, old plays often, to Charles Lamb, whom he described as a stuttering man, who, when a book suited him, sometimes laid down the price, and smiled and nodded, and then walked away with it in his pocket or under his arm, without a word having been exchanged. When we came to speak of dates, I found that my informant—who had only conjectured that this was Lamb—was unquestionably mistaken. One of the best customers he ever had for anything old or curious, and in Italian, if he remembered rightly, as well as in English, was the late Rev. Mr. Scott, who was chaplain on board the Victory, at the time of Nelson’s death at Trafalgar. “He had a living in Yorkshire, I believe it was,” said the man, “and used to come up every now and then to town. I was always glad to see his white head and rosy face, and to have a little talk with him about books and trade, though it wasn’t always easy to catch what he said, for he spoke quick, and not very distinct. But he was a pleasant old gentleman, and talked to a poor man as politely as he might to an admiral. He was very well known in my trade, as I was then employed.”

The same man once sold to a gentleman, he told me, and he believed it was somewhere about twenty-five years ago, if not more, a Spanish or Portuguese work, but what it was he did not know. It was marked 1s. 9d., being a good-sized book, but the stall-keeper was tired of having had it a long time, so that he gladly would have taken 9d. for it. The gentleman in question handed him half-a-crown, and, as he had not the change, the purchaser said: “O, don’t mind; it’s worth far more than half-a-crown to me.” When this liberal customer had walked away, a gentleman who had been standing at the stall all the time, and who was an occasional buyer, said, “Do you know him?” and, on receiving an answer in the negative, he rejoined, “That’s Southey.”

Another stall-keeper told me that his customers—some of whom he supplied with any periodical in the same way as a newsvendor—had now and then asked him, especially “the ladies of the family,” who glanced, when they passed, at the contents of his stall, why he had not newer works? “I tell them,” said the stall-keeper, “that they haven’t become cheap enough yet for the streets, but that they would come to it in time.” After some conversation about his trade, which only confirmed the statements I have given, he said laughingly, “Yes, indeed, you all come to such as me at last. Why, last night I heard a song about all the stateliest buildings coming to the ivy, and I thought, as I listened, it was the same with authors. The best that the best can do is the book-stall’s food at last. And no harm, for he’s in the best of company, with Shakespeare, and all the great people.”

Calculating 15s. weekly as the average earnings of the street book-stall keepers—for further information induces me to think that the street bookseller who earned 18s. a week regularly, cleared it by having a “tidy pitch”—and reckoning that, to clear such an amount, the bookseller takes, at least, 1l. 11s. 6d. weekly, we find 5,460 guineas yearly expended in the purchase of books at the purely street-stalls, independently of what is laid out at the open-air stalls connected with book-shops.