My own love of books was the cause of my entering to a small extent into authorship. Besides occasionally contributing to our trade journals, I also wrote articles in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" on publishing, etc., and also in "The Nineteenth Century," "The Fortnightly Review," and other journals. Some of these I afterwards collected in a volume which I published in 1912 under the title of "The Fascination of Books." I have also issued volumes entitled "The Pleasure of Literature and the Solace of Books," "Saunterings in Bookland," and others. I have also published yearly since 1903, a little "Friend to Friend Kalendar," to which each year I have contributed a poem on Friendship. This has not only had a large circulation, but has brought me many letters of appreciation and added to my many friendships.
The trade of the bookseller, as we now know him, has gradually developed from the early part of the last century. Until then the bookseller either largely printed, or in association with other publisher-booksellers joined in producing, many of the books they sold, the various bookselling partners whose names were on the title page sometimes numbering over twenty different firms. The making and selling of books has now developed into many different channels. There is the Author, the Author's Agent, the Publisher, the wholesale Distributor, and lastly, but not the least important, is the Bookseller. These various mediums through which most books must pass, have to be considered, particularly as regards terms, and although a book may cost little in its production, there are many expenses to be considered before its selling price can be fixed. This has led to much dissatisfaction during the past fifty years, and although arrangements entirely satisfactory to the trade generally have not yet been made, it is now in a more flourishing condition than it has ever been. What I think is now required is the formation of a Booksellers' Central Committee, of which Authors, Publishers, and Booksellers should become members. This would exclude the Author's Agent and every one not directly connected with the trade of bookselling, as printers, binders and others have their own organizations. Committees of each branch of the trade should be formed to deal with all trade technicalities, but discussions by the members in Council would be allowed upon any departmental difficulty, and the decision of the whole body accepted as final.
In connexion with this body, an arrangement might be made whereby the trade assistants could have a separate establishment for educational and other matters connected with the trade. They should have the power of electing a certain number of members to represent them when any Trades Union or other difficult question came up for general consideration. The future is full of difficulties, and it is only through friendly discussions among the various representatives of all departments of the bookselling trade that these difficulties can be satisfactorily settled.
The need for some progressive alteration in the trade must be apparent to every one associated with it, especially when we look back for some fifty years and remember the difficulties that then existed respecting the giving of discounts to the public, and then consider how during the terrible war now brought to a close and in the years since, the question of discounts has seldom arisen. Those who remember the difficulties which the discount system caused at the before-mentioned period will feel thankful for the part taken in its abolition by the united action of the Publishers' and Booksellers' Associations, and especially by the general establishment of the net book system and in many cases the doing away with the odd copy. But this subject has been more fully dealt with in the chapter on Underselling.
It is, however, only by trade organization that difficulties which must in future arise can be solved, and it is to be hoped that it will further the interest of the assistants and the younger members of the trade so that instead of that want of knowledge which we often hear expressed, we shall have men engaged who are worthy of their craft, and with altered surroundings bookselling, if not regarded as a profession, may be considered as an occupation of light and leading.
I have not dealt here with what is known as the second-hand bookseller. He is the one individual in our trade whom I envy. It is true that while he deals with the books of the past the ordinary bookseller deals with those of the present, and those to come. His knowledge, however, of his particular branch of trade is, I think, wonderful, for not only does he know the history of a book from its birth to its place upon his shelves, but a little conversation with him and a walk round his shop and the taking down some of the books from their shelves, is sufficient to make any book-lover forget this world in the pleasure and imaginings of those precious treasures which to know is to revere.
Some Personal Associations