401. In order to put down the combination of booksellers, no plan appears so likely to succeed as a counter-association of authors. If any considerable portion of the literary world were to unite and form such an association; and if its affairs were directed by an active committee, much might be accomplished. The objects of such an union should be, to employ some person well skilled in the printing, and in the bookselling trade; and to establish him in some central situation as their agent. Each member of the association to be at liberty to place any, or all of his works in the hands of this agent for sale; to allow any advertisements, or list of books published by members of the association, to be stitched up at the end of each of his own productions; the expense of preparing them being defrayed by the proprietors of the books advertised.
The duties of the agent would be to retail to the public, for ready money, copies of books published by members of the association. To sell to the trade, at prices agreed upon, any copies they may require. To cause to be inserted in the journals, or at the end of works published by members, any advertisements which the committee or authors may direct. To prepare a general catalogue of the works of members. To be the agent for any member of the association respecting the printing of any work.
Such a union would naturally present other advantages; and as each author would retain the liberty of putting any price he might think fit on his productions, the public would have the advantage of reduction in price produced by competition between authors on the same subject, as well as of that arising from a cheaper mode of publishing the volumes sold to them.
402. Possibly, one of the consequences resulting from such an association, would be the establishment of a good and an impartial review, a work the want of which has been felt for several years. The two long-established and celebrated reviews, the unbending champions of the most opposite political opinions. are, from widely differing causes, exhibiting unequivocal signs of decrepitude and decay. The quarterly advocate of despotic principles is fast receding from the advancing intelligence of the age; the new strength and new position which that intelligence has acquired, demands for its expression, new organs, equally the representatives of its intellectual power, and of its moral energies: whilst, on the other hand, the sceptre of the northern critics has passed, from the vigorous grasp of those who established its dominion, into feebler hands.
403. It may be stated as a difficulty in realizing this suggestion, that those most competent to supply periodical criticism, are already engaged. But it is to be observed, that there are many who now supply literary criticisms to journals, the political principles of which they disapprove; and that if once a respectable and well-supported review(5*) were established, capable of competing, in payment to its contributors, with the wealthiest of its rivals, it would very soon be supplied with the best materials the country can produce. (6*) It may also be apprehended that such a combination of authors would be favourable to each other. There are two temptations to which an editor of a review is commonly exposed: the first is, a tendency to consult too much, in the works he criticizes, the interest of the proprietor of his review; the second, a similar inclination to consult the interests of his friends. The plan which has been proposed removes one of these temptations, but it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to destroy the other.
NOTES:
1. The whole of the subsequent details relate to the first edition of this work.
2. These details vary with different books and different publishers; those given in the text are believed to substantially correct, and are applicable to works like the present.
3. It is now understood that the use of spies has been given up; and it is also known that the system of underselling is again privately resorted to by many, so that the injury arising from this arbitrary system, pursued by the great booksellers, affects only, or most severely, those whose adherence to an extorted promise most deserves respect. Note to the second edition.
4 The monopoly cases. Nos. 1. 2. and 3. of those published by Mr Pickering, should be consulted upon this point; and, as the public will be better able to form a judgement by hearing the other side of the question, it is to be hoped the Chairman of the Committee (Mr Richardson) will publish those regulations respecting the trade, a copy of which. Mr Pickering states, is refused by the Committee even to those who sign them.