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.
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.”