"Peor and BaälimForsake their temples dim."
"Peor and BaälimForsake their temples dim."
"Peor and BaälimForsake their temples dim."
"Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim."
[30]Miss Martineau's 'History of the Peace,' vol. i. p. 580.[31]'Address of the Committee,' June 1, 1843.
[30]Miss Martineau's 'History of the Peace,' vol. i. p. 580.
[31]'Address of the Committee,' June 1, 1843.
London Catalogue, 1816-1851—Annual Catalogues, 1828-1853—Classes of Books, 1816-1861—Periodicals, 1831, 1853—Aggregate amount of Book-trade—Collections and Libraries—International Copyright—Readers in the United States—Irish National School-books.
'TheLondon Catalogue of Books published in Great Britain, 1816 to 1851,' furnishes, in its alphabetical list, with "sizes, prices, and publishers' names," that insight into the character and extent of the literature of a generation which we cannot derive from any other source. We have already given some of the calculations of past periods. Let us endeavour to trace what the commerce of books has been in our own time.
Every book in this 'London Catalogue' occupies a single line. There are 72 lines in a page; there are 626 pages. It follows that the Catalogue contains the titles of 45,072 books. In these 36 years, then, there was an average annual publication of 1252 books. This number is more than double the average of the period from 1800 to 1827. There is also published, by the proprietor of 'The London Catalogue,' an Annual Catalogue of New Books. From two of these catalogues we derive the following comparative results for the beginning and the end of a quarter of a century:—
Such calculations are not arrived at without the labour of many hours; but the labour is not ill-bestowed by us, for they afford better data for opinion than loose talk about the number, quality, and price of books. Hence we learn, that, in 1853, there were three times as many books published as in 1828; that the comparative increase in the number of volumes was not so great, showing that of the new books more single volumes were published; that the total cost of one set of the new publications had increased by more than one-half of the former cost; that the average price of each new work had been reduced nearly one-half; and that the average price per volume had fallen about 5s. below the price of 1828. A further analysis of this Annual List shows that, of the 2530 books published in 1853, only 287 were published at a guinea and upwards; and that of these only 206 were books of general information; while 28 were law-books, and 53 of the well-accustomed dear class of guinea-and-a-half novels. Decidedly the Quarto Dynasty had died out.
As a supplement to the 'London Catalogue,1816-1851,' there is published a 'Classified Index.' Through this we are enabled to estimate in round numbers the sort of books which the people were buying, or reading, or neglecting, in these 36 years.[32]We find that they were invited to purchase in the following proportion of classes:—
But the Catalogues of New Books fall very short of affording a complete view of the state of popular literature at any given period. We must apply to other sources of information.
The publication of 'The Penny Magazine,' and of 'Chambers' Journal,' in 1832, was concurrent with a general increase in the demand for periodical works. At the end of 1831 there were issued 177 monthly publications, a single copy of which cost 17l.12s.6d.At the end of 1833 there were 236 monthly periodicals, a single copy of which cost 23l.3s.6d.At the end of 1853 there were 362 of the same monthly class, a single copy of which cost 14l.17s.6d.In 1831 the average price of the monthly periodicals was 2s.; in 1833, 1s.11½d.; and in 1853, 9½d.Can there be any doubt of the adaptation of periodical literature, during these years, to the wondrous extension of readers?
It appears from 'The London Catalogue of Periodicals,' published by Messrs. Longman and Co., from which we derive the calculations we have now made, that there are 56weeklyperiodicals. There were 21 in 1833. But this list, which is adapted for what is known as 'The Trade,' is farfrom including all the cheap sheets that are issued weekly from the London press. There is a very large class of such publications that are very rarely found in the shops of regular booksellers, either in town or country. Many of these periodicals have the taint upon them of the names of their publishers; and some of them a few years ago were infamous. We do not find in the 'London Catalogue of Periodicals' the names of several works, and of one especially, which present the most remarkable example in our times of the extent to which cheap literature is offered to the people in marts which are comparatively unknown to the upper and middle classes. The facilities of communication have sent an unparalleled quantity of weekly sheets through the land, at a rate of cheapness which defies all competition of literary quality against weight of paper and crowding of print. In every shop of every back-street of London and the larger towns, where a tradesman in tobacco or lollipops or lucifer-matches formerly grew thin upon his small amount of daily halfpence, there now rush in the schoolboy, the apprentice, the milliner, the factory-girl, the clerk, and the small shopkeeper, for their 'London Journal,' 'Family Herald,' 'Reynolds' Miscellany,' and 'Cassell's Paper.' We have ascertained, from sources upon which we can rely, that of these four sheets a million copies are sold weekly. Of the contents of these, and other cheap works, we shall have presently to speak.
When we look back at the various periods ofEnglish publication, and consider how amazingly the aggregate number of books published in any one period has increased, we must also regard the size and price of the works published to form any adequate notion of the progress of cheap literature. With a general reduction of price during the last twenty years—with the substitution of duodecimos for quartos—and with single volumes beyond all former precedent—there is little doubt that the annual returns of the publishing trade, in all its departments (we include newspapers), are double what they were in 1833. They were estimated then at 2,500,000l.We should not be wide of the mark in considering them at present to have reached to 5,000,000l.As the silk-trade is now to be estimated, not by the number of ladies of fashion who wear brocade on court-days, but of the millions who buy a silk dress for ordinary use; so is the book-trade to be estimated, not by the number of the learned who once bought folios, and of the rich who rejoiced in exclusive quartos, but of the many to whom a small volume of a living author has become a necessity for instruction or for amusement, and who desire to read our established literature in editions well printed and carefully edited, though essentially cheap. This number of readers is constantly increasing, and as constantly pressing for a reduction of price upon modern books of high reputation. Mr. Macaulay's 'Essays' were originally published at 1l.16s.; they then appeared in one large volume at 1l.1s.Messrs. Longman nowadvertise a "People's Edition," in 7 monthly parts at 1s., and in numbers at 1½d.They do so, they say, "on the recommendation of correspondents who have expressed their desire to possess them, but who have found the existing editions beyond their means."
In turning over the leaves of the London Catalogue from 1816 to 1851, we rejoice to see how much has been done in this direction, whatever may be the greater amount yet to be done. Of the Poets—Byron, Campbell, Crabbe, Coleridge, Moore, Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, are obtainable at the most reasonable prices, in collected editions. The elder Poets may be had in the Aldine Series, and in new collections, now in course of publication. The most popular of the recent Novelists—Scott, Dickens, D'Israeli, Lytton, Thackeray—are in volumes whose cheapness introduces them to many a fireside where the original editions would find no place. Wilkinson's 'Egypt,' Alison's 'History of Europe,' the works of Chalmers, and many extensive theological books, have been reproduced at cheap rates. The various 'Libraries' which have been published and are still publishing—Bohn's Antiquarian, Classics, Classical, Ecclesiastical, Illustrated, Scientific, and Standard; the Library of Entertaining Knowledge; the Family Library; the Edinburgh Cabinet Library; Lardner's Cyclopædia; Family Classical Library; Knight's Weekly Volumes; Jardine's Naturalist's Library; Murray's Home and Colonial Library; SacredClassics; Christian Family Library; Smith's Standard Library; Tegg's Standard Library; National Illustrated Library; Reading for the Rail; Traveller's Library; Standard Novels; Chambers' Miscellany of Facts; Papers for the People; Instructive Library; Weale's Rudimentary Series: these, the more important of the various Collections that can be called cheap, comprise no fewer than 1400 volumes. It would require an enumeration which is the province of the future bibliographer, to show how many separate books, in every department of knowledge, have been issued during the last twenty years, with a distinct reference to the means of the greatest number of readers. But the process here, as in other cases, has necessarily been gradual. The general cheapening of books must be gradual to be safe. The soundings of the perilous sea of publishing must be constantly taken. There is no chart for this navigation which exhibits all the sunken rocks and quicksands.
In addition to the Collections just enumerated, we have the new Libraries, whether known as Cheap Series, Parlour Library, Pocket Library, Railway Library, or Readable Books. These are, for the most part, devoted to novels, old and new, and to American reprints. In this form 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' rushed into a circulation which no book—with the exception of the Bible and Prayer-Book, and perhaps some Spelling-Book—ever before attained. Here Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton isto reach a popularity which no novelist ever before reached; and to be paid "the extravagant sum of 20,000l.for the exclusive sale of his works for the next ten years," as we are assured in 'The Times.' We hear of enormous profits made, and fortunes realised, by these books. They meet the eye on every railway stall and in every stationer's window, glittering in green and crimson. But we also sometimes hear of large stocks of unsaleable ventures, and of consequent evil-fortune, in spite of one or two profitable undertakings. We have great confidence in the largest sale of the cheapest edition of an attractive book by an author of reputation; but we have no confidence in the large individual sale of a great number of such distinct books, each jostling the other in the race for popularity. We believe that the sale of many such works has been much exaggerated. We hear that the margin of profit, as commercial men say, is very narrow, and leaves little surplus to cover risk. Of one thing we are clear. Whatever sum may be paid for a great name, the natural sale of books of this class can afford very little for the payment of copyright in ordinary cases. The paper, machine-work, and binding, we are informed, of one of the shilling volumes will cost, for an impression of 10,000, about 220l., and the trade expenses and advertising will raise that cost to 250l.This is 6d.per copy. They are sold wholesale at 8s.for 13 copies, which leaves a surplus of about 60l.But the setting up the types and the stereotyping willcost about 40l.There is 20l.then left for the publisher upon 10,000l.If he sells 20,000l.there is 80l.Where is the fund for the payment of authorship? Is it to be assumed that a sale of 40,000 or 50,000 copies may at present be attained for such works under ordinary conditions? If not, is the cheapest supply of reading for these kingdoms to be kept up by piracies from America or republications of expired copyrights? We doubt if this trade generally is in a healthy position: at any rate, we fear that we must scarcely look to this class of books for making "Cheap Literature" what it might be made by judicious management—an instrument of great public good. Piracy from American authors has been, within these few years, chiefly confined to the shilling Railway Volumes; and it had a great success while all the elements that combine to produce an anti-slavery enthusiasm were in operation. But it has lost the charm of novelty, and the fashion of American novels is now somewhat stale. In the mean while the United States never relax in their course. In Mr. Carey's 'Letters on International Copyright,' published at Philadelphia in 1853, we have some details of the advantage of the fraudulent cheapness to the American public. He says, Mr. Dickens sells 'Bleak House' in England for 21s.(5 dollars); comparing the book with copyright books in America, of which the sale is large, he would expect 3 dollars under the international system. The number of 'Bleak House' supplied to American readers innewspapers and magazines, as well as in the book form, is not less than 250,000, at half a dollar, giving for the whole 125,000 dollars. Mr. Dickens would charge 750,000 dollars:—
Reckoning in the same way, the following differences are estimated:—
This is a difference of 409,500l.sterling. Mr. Carey deduces from these figures this logical consequence: "Under the system of international copyright, one of two things must be done: either the peoplemustbe taxed in the whole of this amount for the benefit of the various persons, abroad and at home, who are now to be invested with the monopoly power, or theymustlargely diminish their purchases of literary food." He would not have a healthy cheapness, produced in both countries by an open commerce and a fair competition. He would not have a cheapness produced by the publishers of both countries reckoning upon an extended market, and a consequent division of the first expenses of a book. He would have a piratical cheapness—the cheapness of the smuggler and the illicit distiller—"for the general interestsof the American people." This ingenious gentleman has a ready defence. There is no copyright in the facts of a book. Copyright is given for the clothing in which the body is produced to the world. Mr. Macaulay has contributed nothing to positive knowledge. Mr. Dickens has gone into a large garden, and made a bouquet of the flowers, although he paid no wages to the man who raised them. He who makes a book uses the common property of mankind, and all he furnishes is the workmanship. Mankind has, therefore, a right to say to the authors, whenever they seek an extension of their privileges, "Be content, my friends; do not risk the loss of a part of what you have, in the effort to obtain more." Mr. Carey is further obliging enough to tell us that in England authors, with a few brilliant exceptions, are condemned to almost hopeless poverty, which he attributes to our system of centralization. Why do not the wealthy people of England give a shilling a head towards paying for the copyright of books, instead of bringing the poverty of authors before the world, and demanding from other countries an extension of the monopoly they have at home? The people of England, through centralization, have become so poor and wretched that there is no demand for books, and no power to compensate the people who make them. Authors there are badly paid and insolently treated. Science is in no request in England, and hence the diminution of supply. In contrast with the limited sale of English books at home is the great extent ofsale here.Argal, let the authors starve at home; why should we, the great American people, tax ourselves for their aid? We give themfame, and that is enough. Let notourwriters, adds this candid and modest gentleman, desire to barter our great market for literature for one in which Hood was permitted to starve, and Tennyson and others submit to the degradation of receiving public charity in the shape of pensions. The wretched English authors may come and live amongst us, and participate in our advantages. American authorship is Belgrave Square; let it not make a treaty with the Grub Street of England, to have a dinner from our well-furnished tables. We think Mr. Carey, "Author of Principles of Political Economy," has done service by this astounding effrontery. If he reflected the mind of the Government or the people, we should be hopeless of any attempt to unite England and America in the protection of a common literature founded upon a common language. But Mr. Carey does not reflect this mind. He does not even speak for the great body of American authors or publishers. He speaks for the proprietors of the newspapers, which, all over the Union, are filled, week by week, by the piracy of modern English Literature, and especially of English fiction. To keep up this robbery, writers and orators will alike prostitute themselves to defend, unblushingly, what they know to be a disgrace.
But in one point Mr. Carey is right. He showsus, upon representations which we cannot doubt, that the works of popular authors, citizens of the United States, and so protected as copyright, are sold in much larger numbers than similar works in our own country, however cheap. How is this? The American people are much more universally readers than the English people. They are better educated. They have a Government that considers it a duty to educate the young without distinction, and to afford the adult every means of intellectual improvement. The American Government has created a reading nation. Our Government has created a people that rush to low casinos in the towns, and to sottish beer-shops in the country. The American Government accords all honour to them who have laboured in the enlightenment of the masses. Our Government wholly passes over every such claim to recognition. It is of little consequence, in the end, what Cabinets or Parliaments do for the advance of education, or the encouragement of men of letters. But it is somewhat unwise, to say the least of it, to provoke, by neglect and by injury, comparison with a nation that cultivates the same language under different institutions, and that can proclaim, in its energetic youth, that it has raised up an intelligent people out of the great mental inheritance to which our rulers have been faithless.
By injury? it will be said. The British Government may ignore letters, undervalue writers, barter away its patronage upon ignorance and incapacity—butassuredly it cannot attempt to inflict direct injury upon literature and learning? And yet it does all this. The sale of school-books in the United States has reached an almost fabulous extent. Families have been raised to affluence by the enormous circulation of a Spelling-book or a Dictionary. A successful Grammar is a fortune. He who can produce sensible and amusing Reading-Lessons is better paid than a Secretary of State. Does the Government bestow any gratuities upon such services? Certainly not. But it does not discourage and annihilate them. It does not, as our Government does, interfere with competition by attempting to regulate prices. It does not do the silly thing which M. Louis Blanc wished to do in France for "the organization of literary labour." It has established no manufactory of school-books, produced cheaply, by the tax-payers helping the production. It has no Board of Commissioners, as we have, "to supply the National Schools in Ireland,and the public generally, with works in harmony with an improved system of education, cheap in price and superior in execution."[33]We ask, what possible right has the State to produce such books, andsell them in the open literary markets of this country, to the injury of all who produce similar books by the fair workings of capital and labour? School-books were formerly too dear; but as schools multiplied, cheaper books than the old standard works came into the market, and many took root and flourished. Much of this property has been destroyed by the Government operation; which is not confined to 'Reading Lessons,' but embraces 'Biographical Sketches of Poets'—'Selections from the Poets'—'Epitome of Geographical Knowledge'—'Grammar,' 'Arithmetic,' 'Geometry,' 'Mensuration,' 'Agriculture,' 'Maps.' The compilers of these books and maps are salaried state-servants; the books are printed at the lowest contract; the usual trade allowances are withheld; profit does not enter into price. A book of 17½ sheets demy, or 420 pages, bound in cloth, is sold forsevenpence, as we learn from the Commissioners' Catalogue. This is exactly the cost price for the paper, machine-work, and binding, in the very cheapest market. There is nothing for trade-management, and not one fraction for copyright. Commercial competition is impossible. We say, this is a fraudulent cheapness. All cheapness in books is fraudulent which sets aside a payment for literary labour. This is the cheapness of piracies, whether here or in the United States. It is a cheapness that, if carried out, as it might be by a Government, would degrade literature to the lowest condition, annihilating all invention and improvement. Once concedethe principle that the State has a right to produce educational books, except for the supply of schools paid by the State—and even then the policy is very doubtful—and there is no individual literary enterprise that may not be paralyzed and destroyed by this new agency. In England, the only commercial undertaking of the State is that of the Post Office. It is conducted with a profit; it is conducted with a precision and cheapness which really leave few things to be amended. There are especial reasons why the conveyance of letters through the whole civilized world should be the work of the State. No company, no individual, could grapple with such a gigantic task. But is there any other branch of commercial enterprise which the State could undertake with the slightest benefit—without most serious injury? If the end sought is to employ labour to a profit, individual enterprise will accomplish that end far better than the State. If the object is to employ labour that shall be unprofitable, who is to supply the deficiency in the funds that have called into activity the profitable labour? There would indeed be the equality of employments, but it would be the equality of universal poverty. The skilled and the unskilled would be reduced to the same level. There would be no prizes in the social wheel;—the blanks would be something worse than the mere absence of superfluities.
[32]The 'Classified Index' contains only about 40,000 references; while the number of books in the 'Catalogue' is 45,000. The book referred to in the Index is only once mentioned, in whatever form it has appeared. To equalize the number, we have added 10 per cent. to each division of the Index, in our calculation.[33]These are the words of an official puff, in 16 pages, called 'An Analysis of the Irish National School-books.' A more impudent document was never put forth by the Curlls of a past or present age. The manufacturers of the Irish Reading Lessons pirated a copyright belonging to the writer of this volume (occupying 47 pages, in 10 of their Lessons), 'The Mineral Kingdom,' which was written by Mr. Leonard Horner. Their 'Analysis' says, that these "most interesting facts and reasonings relating to Organised Remains are extracted from the writings of Buckland and other celebrated Geologists."
[32]The 'Classified Index' contains only about 40,000 references; while the number of books in the 'Catalogue' is 45,000. The book referred to in the Index is only once mentioned, in whatever form it has appeared. To equalize the number, we have added 10 per cent. to each division of the Index, in our calculation.
[33]These are the words of an official puff, in 16 pages, called 'An Analysis of the Irish National School-books.' A more impudent document was never put forth by the Curlls of a past or present age. The manufacturers of the Irish Reading Lessons pirated a copyright belonging to the writer of this volume (occupying 47 pages, in 10 of their Lessons), 'The Mineral Kingdom,' which was written by Mr. Leonard Horner. Their 'Analysis' says, that these "most interesting facts and reasonings relating to Organised Remains are extracted from the writings of Buckland and other celebrated Geologists."
Cheap Fiction—Penny Periodicals.
TheRailway Libraries—by which generic term we mean single volumes, printed in small type on indifferent paper, and sold mostly at a shilling—are almost wholly devoted to novels, English or American. Whatever be the quality of the fiction so published, we may ask, without any general depreciation of such works, if the popularity of this class of reading has not a tendency to indispose for other reading, however attractive be the mode in which information, historical, critical, or scientific, be presented; and is it not a necessary consequence that books of another character than novels should be compelled to address themselves to a smaller class of readers, and must, therefore, of necessity be dearer? If this be true of the railway books, it is equally true of the weekly sheets. The demand for fiction amongst the largest class of readers has forced upon every weekly periodical the necessity for introducing fiction in some form or other. The writers of eminence cannot put forth their powers in this direction without charging a higher price for their numbers than those in which inferior writers are employed at low salaries. The higher price necessarily induces a smaller sale. The dealers in cheapperiodicals say, "you have no chance for a sale unless you giveas much paperas the others give for a penny!" In this respect, some of the more extensively circulated of these sheets would appear to defy all reasonable competition. They are sold for 50s.per thousand; their paper and machine-work cost, at the very least, 45s.Out of this 5s.per thousand they have to pay their publishing expenses, their writers, their woodcuts, their composition, their stereotype casts. It is a neck-and-neck race for a very doubtful "plate;" and what may appear a slight addition to the weight of the "riders," in the shape of another halfpenny a pound upon their paper, would "distance" the greater number of them. When the popular estimate of a publication is that of the square inches which it contains of print, it requires no critical judgment to be assured that the amount of genius or knowledge engaged in its production is not very great. Hence, for the most part, a deluge of stories, that, to mention the least evil of them, abound with false representations of manners, drivelling sentimentalities, and impossible incidents. And yet they are devoured with an earnestness that is almost incomprehensible. The moralist may say—
"England, the time is come when thou shouldst weanThy heart from this emasculating food."
"England, the time is come when thou shouldst weanThy heart from this emasculating food."
"England, the time is come when thou shouldst weanThy heart from this emasculating food."
"England, the time is come when thou shouldst wean
Thy heart from this emasculating food."
How is the weaning to be set about for this babyhood of the popular intellect?
The insuperable obstacle to a successful competition with the existing class of penny periodicalsis their pre-eminence inexternalcheapness. They were all founded upon the principle of attraction by low price alone. They employed the meanest "slaves of the lamp" in their production. Sheets came out double the size of any other penny sheet, badly printed on the thinnest paper, but nevertheless they were the largest sheets; their roots were thus planted in the popular earth. Some who bought them turned away from their filth and their folly; others welcomed these qualities. Gradually the sense of the better class of artisans operated, whilst they continued their offences, to reduce their number of customers. They changed their style; they became decent, but they remained stupid. The weeds were kept down, though not rooted out, in that garden: a few gaudy flowers were planted; fruit there was little. They have maintained their hold, by their external cheapness, against any attempt to produce a higher literature, with better paper and print. They have beaten almost every competitor who has sought to addressthe same classof buyers with something higher, intrinsically as cheap, but not so cheap to the eye. The unequal war is still being waged.
In June, 1846, the last number of 'The Penny Magazine' was published. Mr. Knight, who had been its editor from the commencement, in 1832, thus writes in his concluding 'Address to the Reader,' after stating that there then were published 14 three-halfpenny and penny miscellanies, and 37 weekly sheets, forming separate books:—"Itis from this competition that the 'Penny Magazine' now withdraws itself. Its editor most earnestly wishes success to those who are keeping on their course with honesty and ability.... He rejoices that there are many in the field, and some who have come at the eleventh hour, who deserve the wages of zealous and faithful labourers. But there are others who are carrying out the principle of cheap weekly sheets to the disgrace of the system, and who appear to have got some considerable hold upon the less informed of the working people, and especially upon the young. There are manufactories in London whence hundreds of reams of vile paper and printing issue weekly; where large bodies of children are employed to arrange types, at the wages of shirt-makers, from copy furnished by the most ignorant, at the wages of scavengers. In truth, such writers, if they deserve the name of writers,arescavengers. All the garbage that belongs to the history of crime and misery is raked together, to diffuse a moral miasma through the land, in the shape of the most vulgar and brutal fiction." This is a curious and instructive record. 'The Penny Magazine,' popular as it once was, to the extent of a sale of 200,000, could not contend with a cheapness that was wholly regardless of quality; and it could not hold its place amidst this dangerous excitement. The editor had his hands fettered by the necessity of keeping up the purely instructive character of that journal. Without a large supply of fictionit necessarily ceased to be popular. A French writer, who laments over the "immondices" of the literature of Paris in 1840, calls for romances "appropriés par une imagination souple et brillante au goût des classes laborieuses;" and he suggests the principle upon which such works should be founded, viz. "L'étude des mœurs populaires, entreprise par un esprit pénétrant, et dirigée vers un but philosophique."[34]The "immondices" have for the most part vanished from our English penny literature. The host of penny Newgate novels, whether known as 'The Convict,' 'The Feast of Blood,' 'The Murder at the Old Jewry,' 'Claude Duval,' 'The Hangman's Daughter,' and so forth, may continue to be sold; but, as far as we can trace, there are no novelties in this once popular literature of the gallows. Abominations, called 'Mysteries' and 'Castles,' still lurk in dark corners; but the bulk of single Penny Novels, and the novels which "drag their slow length along" in penny journals, are marvellously changed. The most prudish regard to decency presides over every sentence and syllable. William the Conqueror has lost the brief ignoble title by which the old Saxons designated their oppressor, through a special interdict of the proprietor of one of these papers; and a lady of doubtful character must be mentioned by no more rugged name than that of abelle amie, which may be understood or not. But the "études des mœurs populaires," and the "but philosophique,"have not yet entered into the minds of the conductors of these elaborate works. Their scenes are invariably laid in the lord's palace or the right honourable's mansion; marriages are made at St. George's, Hanover Square, and the diamonds are bought at Storr and Mortimer's. If a young lady, who has the slight misfortune to be connected by the filial tie with a convicted felon, has a quarrel with her juvenile lover, she immediately rushes to the arms of an ancient baronet, who conducts her the next morning to the altar of his parish church. Boileau said of Mademoiselle Scudery, that she would never let her heroine get out of a house till she had taken an inventory of all the furniture. So, for the bewilderment of those who read these weekly novels by the one glimmering candle upon the deal table, their sick ladies recline in easy chairs, "astral" lamps diffuse their rich glow upon crimson curtains, and aromatic perfumes fill the air from pastiles burning in miniature castles of gilded porcelain. The style of these productions is magnificent: with golden zones on the summits of the mountains, and roseate tints edging the canopy of heaven; plants drooping with voluptuous languor, and shining insects skimming the air, as if borne on the wings of ardent passion. In all this we are speakingau pied de la lettre. Johnson described three sorts of unnatural style—the bombastic, the affected, and the weak. Most of these performances unite the three qualities, and are equally satisfactoryto the "love of imbecility," which Johnson thought was to be found in many. We have only seen one penny journal which places its incidents, and somewhat adapts its language, in consonance with the habits of the classes which these works seek to interest. In 'The Leisure Hour,' issued by the Religious Tract Society, we have an Australian story, with 'Sydney by Gaslight.' We are now amongst convicts, and hear drunken shouts come out from miserable huts. The success of this publication is considerable. Perhaps those who really understand such matters may say of the writer of these laudable attempts to imitate the homely style, something akin to what the great Pierce Egan said of a fashionable novelist twenty years ago—"Ah! he's very clever, but uncommon superficial in slang." Nevertheless, it is satisfactory to find that a mean has been sought, in the quarter where we might least have expected it, between the representations of humble and even of low life which are corrupting, and those pretended pictures of society which exhibit no life at all. In the number of 'The Leisure Hour' for February 16, 1854, there is a clever woodcut of a night auction at Sydney, which is as suggestive of a congregation of real vulgar sellers and bidders, with the necessary accompaniments of gin and tobacco, as might be connected with any of the exciting scenes of 'Life in London' at any period. The pictures of the penny sheets which the masses now greedily buyare quite genteel. This is something to reflect upon. Some of the members of the Tract Society may think that "Chaos is come again." We do not. This sort of subject will be attractive to the better portion of male readers amongst the artisans, and especially amongst the very large number who belong to "temperance societies;" but for the girls, who devour the novels of the other penny journals, certainly not. Those who have been watching the workings of the penny literature are unanimous in their conviction that very few men read these mawkish and unnatural fictions. The readers for the most part belong, in point of cultivation, to the same class of females, who, half a century ago, gave up their whole leisure—if they did not neglect every domestic duty—for the ghosts and the elopements of 'The Minerva Press.' The intelligence of the readers is the same, however widened the attraction.
But, with all their bad taste, there is partial merit and manifest utility in some portions of the best of these penny journals. 'The Family Herald' has constantly a serious article of great good sense and shrewdness. This paper, and one or two others, have pages of "Answers to Correspondents," which, for the most part, contain useful information and judicious advice. Real young ladies often pour their doubts into the ear of this "Family" oracle, about love, and courtship, and marriage; and, as far as we can judge, receive very safe counsel. In the whole range of these things we can detect nothingthat bears a parallel with what used to be called "the blasphemous and seditious press." Neither, although these papers do not wholly abstain from comment upon what is passing in the world, can they be called newspapers. We see, however, that the new trump of war is calling up again one or two of the old class of unstamped violators of the law. In quiet times they cannot flourish. They may be difficult to suppress,
'Now all the youth of England are on fire.'
[34]Frégier, 'Les Classes Dangereuses.'
[34]Frégier, 'Les Classes Dangereuses.'
Degrees of Readers—General Improvement—Newspaper Press—Newspaper Press National—Agricultural Readers—General desire for Amusement—Supply of real Knowledge.
Ourreaders can scarcely have failed to make for themselves the deduction which naturally arises out of this survey of the progress of popular literature—that there always have been, still are, and always will be, various classes of readers and purchasers; and that the invariable progress of knowledge and intelligence—from the learned to the rich, from the rich to the middle classes, from the middle classes to the multitude—has produced as invariably a corresponding change in the number of books published, their quality, and their price. As the rich began to gather knowledge, books ceased to be wholly adapted to the learned or professional student; as the burgesses began to employ their leisure in reading, books ceased to be dependent upon courtly influence; as the multitude acquired the rudiments of instruction, books became less conventional, and began to adapt themselves to all classes. But it cannot, without a judicial blindness, be assumed that we are arrived at that state in which there are no degrees of intellectual advancement. It is said, to use the language of the most popular journal of our day, that the masses "do not yet feel the assurance that, if they go inthousands to the counters of the great publishing houses, as they congregate around the more plebeian shops, they will get the exact article they want, or whattheyconsider value for their money." Here is the point. The masses, who are yet more imperfectly educated than some of their own class, and most of the class above them, would not consider, as they have never yet considered, solid and instructive reading "value for their money." Unquestionably "books to please the million must not only be good but attractive." The chief popular labour of the last quarter of a century has been to convert the ponderous ores of learning into the fine gold of knowledge. The multitude have been reached in many directions; and the influences of "good but attractive" books have penetrated where the books themselves have not yet had a direct influence. But the multitude stand precisely in the same relation to works of instruction, even the most attractive, as they do to Mechanics' Institutes and Athenæums. In Manchester and its dependencies, in 1851, there were 3447 members of these Institutions, and 1793 pupils in classes.[35]But the great mass of the youth of both sexes in Manchester were frequenting the Casinos. Here they neither drank, nor danced, nor gambled: they listened to recitations and comic songs at a penny an hour. They wanted mere amusement, and they found it. It is the same with the great bulk of the readers of cheap books. "It is mostworthy of note," says the writer just mentioned, whose anxiety for cheap literature we honour and appreciate, "that, when there has been no doubt of the substantial value of the commodity issued from the Row or Albemarle Street, the sale of the books has been by no means equivocal." Certainly not. Macaulay and Layard have found large numbers of purchasers, and will find them, in their cheap form. But are these purchasers what are called, in the same breath, "the multitude"—"the needy"? Not at all. Even the most successful of the periodical works above a penny—'Chambers' Journal,' 'Household Words,'—reach only the advanced guard of this class. Mr. Dickens collected around him at Birmingham such an audience as never before waited upon an author. He read his beautiful, humanizing 'Christmas Carol' to two thousand working-men. They felt every point—they laughed, or they grew serious, with understanding. But are we to suppose that the whole mass of the mechanical classes—men, women, and children—throughout the kingdom, would rush by millions to buy 'The Christmas Carol' at a penny or two—at a price that would compensate in fame what was wanting in profit? Its sterling merit—its nature, its simplicity, its purity, its quiet humour—require a far higher amount of taste and cultivation to appreciate than the immaturity of mind to which the coarseness and imbecility of the penny journals are acceptable. An author of less popular acceptation published a poem at a farthing, but wenever heard that he employed a steam-press in its production. The multitude have their own weekly literature, and we have seen what it is. Are the novels of the author of 'Pelham' to be speedily found in every cottage of the farm-labourer, and in every garret of the Lancashire cotton-spinner? The time may come, but it is not as yet. If a despotic government, in the desire to disseminate knowledge, were to follow the example which our free Government has set with regard to the 'School-books published by authority of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland,' they might produce sound popular literature as cheap again as the most adventurous of publishers. But if they left competition free to what they considered unsound knowledge—if they permitted the lowest-priced Fiction, however bad or indifferent, to circulate without their unequal competition—we believe the free-traders would beat the monopolists in point of numbers; and it would be found an easier task, even with every commercial disadvantage of price, to "tickle and excite the palate" than "strengthen the constitution."
Do such considerations as these make us hopeless of the steady progress of a sound as well as cheap popular literature? Decidedly no. There is improvement all around us. The halfpenny ballad of Seven Dials is not yet extinct; but let the collectors look sharply about them, for that relic of the chap-books, with the woodcuts that have served every generation, will soon be gone. In itsplace has come the decent penny book of a hundred songs. The shades of Scott, and Moore, and Campbell will not quarrel with this new popularity. There are "flash" songs; but they are not for the penny buyers. Thackeray has described the dens in which these abominations are current. The whole aspect of the humbler press has changed within these few years. Unquestionably the people have changed. Visit, if you can, the interior of that marvellous human machine, the General Post-Office, on a Friday evening, from half-past five to six o'clock. Look with awe upon the tons of newspapers that are crowding in to be distributed through the habitable globe. Think silently how potent a power is this for good or for evil. You turn to one of the boxes of the letter-sorters, and your guide will tell you, "this work occupies not half the time it formerly did, for everybody writes better." General education furnishes the solution of the otherwise doubtful origin of the improvement, in all the more manifest characteristics of improvement, of all popular literature.
In 1801 the annual circulation of newspapers in England and Wales was 15 millions, and in Scotland 1 million. In 1853 the annual circulation of England and Wales was 72 millions, and of Scotland 8 millions, that of Ireland being also about 8 millions. In September, 1836, the stamp-duty on newspapers was reduced to one penny. Immediately previous to the reduction the annual circulation of newspapers in Great Britain was about 29 millions.The increase, therefore, in seventeen years, has been 51 millions. We have cast up the twenty-two folio pages of the 'Return of the number of Newspaper Stamps, at one penny, issued in 1853,' and we find these results, as derived from the stamps, excluding supplements, used by 913 newspapers in England, 18 in Wales, 146 in Scotland, and 121 in Ireland, making a total number of 1198. But it must be borne in mind that about one-half of the publications in this return, called newspapers, are not newspapers in any sense of the word. Every publication can be stamped as a newspaper, for which the proprietor and printer give the necessary legal securities; and thus hundreds of price-currents, catalogues, and circulars—and many literary journals which are only partially stamped, and which none but political pedants, calling for a definition, term newspapers—find their way into this Official Return. There are, in round numbers, 600 newspapers proper in the United Kingdom. There are in London 14 daily papers, 6 twice and thrice a week, and 71 weekly; and about 500 provincial papers in the United Kingdom. Of the London Daily Papers, about 24 millions are annually circulated, of which the 'Times' has the lion's share of 14 millions. There are four weekly papers, published at the surpassingly cheap rate of threepence, which circulate 13 millions. The 'Illustrated London News' has a circulation of 4 millions; and eleven other leading weekly papers issue, annually, 6 millions. Thereare 6 religious papers, which have a circulation of about a million and a quarter. Thus, 36 London publications engross 48 million stamps, out of 71 millions. Of the Provincial English Press there are 26 great towns which number 80 papers, and these 80 consume 13 millions of stamps. We have, therefore, only 10 millions more to distribute amongst the entire newspaper press of England. The Welsh annual circulation is under a million.
We have abstracted from the Official Return the number of stamps used annually by papers published in great cities and towns, especially the large marts of commerce and manufactures:—