of showing this development that the years immediately preceding 1877 are included in the following account.
After the period 1842-1845 there gradually grew up among publishers a gentlemen's agreement, known as "trade courtesy." The purpose of this agreement was to eliminate as far as possible the issuing of competing editions which in most cases, because of the lower price at which each succeeding edition was issued, and because of the smaller sale for each edition was likely to be without profit to any of the competing publishers. Under this agreement the publisher who first brought out a foreign author's book or signified his intention of doing so, was not bothered by a competing edition. If a publisher introduced a new author into this country, he was considered as having an informal option on his following works, though if the author turned out to be a very popular one, the publisher's rights were not always respected. Despite occasional lapses the system worked out pretty well all around; publishers were able to increase both the quality and the price of books by foreign authors, the authors received larger payments than they probably would have received without the system, and American authors were benefited since the price of foreign books and American books were kept more nearly at the same level. The public was offered better made books than would have been possible under a system of unrestricted reprinting, but at a considerably higher price. New books generally sold at from one dollar to one dollar and fifty cents, but the more popular older books such as those of Scott and Cooper could be had in satisfactory paper covered editions at twenty-five and fifty cents a volume. Under trade courtesy such publishing firms as Lippincotts, Harpers, and Appletons, were able to build lists of publications which were doubtless very tempting to adventurous printers or to young publishers trying to get a start.
