Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/343

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BOOKSELLING. 303 BOOLE. trade, which, since 1880, has reached enormous proportions. Editions running to several hun- dred thousand are familiar phenomena of the present day, and may be accounted for not only by the immense increase in the numbers of the reading public, but also by the improvements in advertising methods. See Advertising. Among the later developments the most nota- ble is the formation, in 11)01, of the American Publishers" Association and the American Book- sellers' Association, two organizations that co- operate in maintaining the advertised retail price of copyright books, which are now put out at a price about 20 per cent, less than before the formation of these societies. A large increase in the volume of the English book trade followed upon the foundation of Mu- die's Circulating Library, in 1842, its orders fre- quently amounting to several thousand copies of a single work, and the total number of volumes in it being counted by millions, although the sur- plus copies of popular books are usually disposed of to smaller libraries when the first demand is over. In this connection it is natural to speak of the practice (common in England throughout the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, and generally abandoned at its close) of publishing nearly all novels originally in three volumes, which largely increased the number of volumes published. The railway bookstall business, con- ducted for so many years all over England by W. H. .Smith & Sons, was another characteristic fea- ture of book distribution in England during the Nineteenth Century. Statistics show a steady increase in the number of works annually pub- lished. In 1901 this reached the large total, in the United States, of 5496 new books and 2645 new editions; in England, of 4955 new books and 1089 new editions. The English figures, probably owing to temporary causes, are the lowest for several years : thus the number of new books was 5760 in 1900. and reached 6244 in 1897. The business of selling books at second hand is a special branch, requiring a large amount of bibliographical knowledge, and bringing in profits frequently out of all proportion to the origi- nal investment. It develoijed to large propor- tions in the Nineteenth Century, owing to the growth of systematic collection of books, espe- cially first editions. The famous sale of the Duke of Roxburghe's library occurred in 1812. Among the treasures which that library con- tained was the only known perfect copy of the earliest dated edition of Boccaccio's Decameron (Christ. Valdarfer. Venice, 1471). After a spir- ited competition with Lord Spencer, Lord Bland- ford purchased it for £2260, a higher price than had ever been paid for a single book. Books of the first printers, especially Gutenberg and Fust, bring enormous prices. One of their Bibles (called Mazarin, from the discovery of the first copy in Cardinal Mazarin's library) brought £2690 in 1873; and eleven years later a splendid copy on vellum was sold for £.'5900. At the same sale a beautiful Psalter (I'salmorum Codex), printed by Fust and Schoeffer in 1459, brought £4950. Ca.xtons also run high, the Encydos go- . ing at £2.350 in 1885. Many collectors are, how- ever, satisfied with first editions of comparatively recent writers; the first obscure publications of authors afterwards famous are also in great de- mand. In 1900 Poe's Tamerlane and Other Poems (Boston, 1827), of which only three copies are known to exist, sold for .$2050. Other recent noteworthy sales are those of the Pickering edi- tion of Walton's Complcat Ani/ler, at $2870; of The Troublesome Raignc of ■John, King of Eng- land (1591), at £510; a first folio Shakespeare (1623), at £1720, the record price for this book; and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Part I., first edition, at £1475. The beautiful books from Wil- liam Morris's Kelmscott Press, usually reproduc- tions of the old masters, are nuich sought after. In 1901 a Chaucer on vellum (1896) sold for £510. Bibliography. Birt, Das ant ike Biicherwesen (Berlin, 1882); Sehmitz, Schriftsteller und Buchhiindler in Allien und im itbrigen Griecheii- land (Heidelberg, 1876) ; Haenny, Schriftsteller und Buchhiindler im alien Rom (Leipzig, 1885) ; Curwen, History of Booksellers (London, 1873) ; Lempertz, Bildcrhefte zur Gesehichte des Biicher- handels (Cologne, 1853-65) ; Roberts, The Earlier History of British Bookselling (London, 1889) ; Knight, Sh^ldou•s of the Old Booksellers (London, 1865) ; Andrews, The Old Booksellers of yew York (New York, 1895) ; Lawler, Book Auctions in England in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1898) ; Derbv, Fifty Tears Among Authors, Books, and Publishers (New York, 1884) ; Be- sant. The Pen and the Book (London. 1899) ; Growoll. Book-Trade Bibliography in the .Yine- teenth Century (New York." 1898) ; Dibdin. Bib- liomania (London, 1811) ; Fitz Gerald, The Book- Fancier (London. 1886) ; Burton. The Book-Hunt- er (New York, 1882); Kapp, (Icschichte des dcufschenBuchhandels (Leipzig, 1886) ; Thomas, History of Printing in- America (Albany, 1874) ; Arber, Transcript of the Stationers' Registers (London. 1894). BOOKWORM. A name given to the larva or grub of several beetles closely related to the death-watch (q.v. ). These grubs may feed on the paste, paper, and binding of books. M. Peignot, the French bibliophile, relates that he once found twenty-seven volumes pierced com- pletely through by a single bookworm. See P.lades's Enemies of Books, chap. vi. Books are liable also to be injured by other insects that do not have a grub stage — for example, the im- ported cockroach (Blatta) called the croton- bug, a pest introduced from Europe to the L'nit- ed States: the book-lice (Psocidae) ; and the silver-fish ( Lepisma ) . BOO'XAK. See Bi-i,.K. BOOLE, bnol. George (1815-64). An English mathematician and writer on logic, born in Lin- coln. At the age of 16 he became assist;tnt mas- ter in a Doncaster private school, and subse- quently established a school of his own in Lincoln. In 1849 he was made professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork, where he died. He is best known, perhaps, for his con- tributions to logic. His first publication on this subject appeared in 1847. under the title. Mathe- matical Analysis of Logic, and was followed in 1854 by a more extensive work bearing the title. An Investigation of the Laus of Thought on which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities. The latter work forms a complete exposition of his original method of applying mathematics to logic. Ac- cording to this method, classes of objects and ideas are denoted by mathematical symbols, to which are applied the ordinary rules of algebra,