We might naturally have supposed that the invention of printing would have made a complete break in the mode of selling books, but this was not so. Continuity was preserved, and the company to which the London trade belongs is not called after the printers, but after the older order of stationers. In a “Note of the State of the Company of Printers, Bookesellers, and Bookebynders comprehended under the name of Stacioners,” dated 1582, we are told that “in the tyme of King Henry the Eighte, there were but fewe Printers, and those of good credit and competent wealth, at whiche tyme and before there was an other sort of men that were writers, lymners of Bookes and diverse thinges for the Church and other uses, called Stacioners, which have, and partly to this daye do use to buy their bookes in grosse of the saide Printers, bynde them up, and sell them in their shops, whereby they well mayntayned their families.”[28]
It seems probable that the English booksellers before the introduction of printing experienced little interference in their business from foreign scribes, and therefore the bringing in of printed books from abroad was distasteful to them. What they particularly objected to was the importation of these books bound instead of in sheets.
By “an Act touching the Marchauntes of Italy” (1 Ric. III. cap. 9) aliens were prohibited from importing certain goods into this country, but this Act was not to “extend to Importers of Books, or to any writer, limner, binder, or printer.”
In Henry VIII.’s reign this importation was found intolerable, and “an Act for Printers and Binders of Bokes” was passed (25 Hen. VIII. cap. 15). It is stated in the preamble when the provision in the Act of Richard III. was made there were few books and few printers in England, but that at this time large numbers of printed books were brought into the country—
Whereas, a great number of the King’s subjects within this realm having “given themselves diligently to learn and exercise the said craft of Printing, that at this day there be within this realm a great number cunning and expert in the said science or craft of printing, as able to exercise the said craft in all points as any stranger, in any other realm or country, and furthermore where there be a great number of the King’s subjects within this realm which [live] by the craft and mystery of binding of books, ... well expert in the same,” yet “all this notwithstanding, there are divers persons that bring from [beyond] the sea great plenty of printed books—not only in the Latin tongue, but also in our maternal English tongue—some bound in boards, some in leather, and some in parchment, and them sell by retail, whereby many of the King’s subjects, being binders of books, and having none other faculty wherewith to get their living, be destitute of work, and like to be undone, except some reformation herein be had.”
Then follow some provisions respecting the sale of books at too high a price—
“And after the same enhancing and increasing of the said prices of the said books and binding shall be so found by the said twelve men or otherwise by the examination of the said lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and justices, or two of them; that then the same lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and justices, or two of them at the least from time to time shall have a power and authority to reform and redress such enhancing of the prices of printed books by their discretions, and to limit prices as well of the books as for the binding of them; and over that the offender or offenders thereof being convict by the examination of the same lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and justices, or two of them or otherwise, shall lose and forfeit for every book by them sold whereof the price shall be enhanced for the book or binding thereof, three shillings four pence.”
By the first Copyright Act (8 Anne, cap. 21) any person thinking the published price of a book unreasonable was to complain to the Archbishop of Canterbury or other great dignitaries.
It would have been enlightening if our lawmakers had told us what was in their opinion a reasonable price for a book, but they are silent on this point.
We have unfortunately no information as to the price for which Caxton sold his various books, but he bequeathed fifteen copies of his “Golden Legend” to the churchwardens of St. Margaret, Westminster, who succeeded in selling twelve of them between the years 1496 and 1500. For the first three copies they obtained six shillings and eightpence each, but then they had to reduce the price to five shillings and eightpence, at which price they sold the next seven copies. The last two copies only brought five shillings and sixpence and five shillings respectively, so that evidently there was a falling market.