Musings without method : 'The Times' and the publisher, the real object of 'The Times'.
- Date:
- 1906
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Musings without method : 'The Times' and the publisher, the real object of 'The Times'. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![The Champion of Cheap Literature. 1906.] or eighty publishers who be- long to the Association it was active in the service of man- kind. It stepped boldly for- ward as the champion of cheap literature, and with a cynicism which could hardly deceive anybody, adopted the frank, hardy tone of the crusader. It represented the vast number of rival publishers, and the innumerable booksellers of England, as vile monopolists, who were trying, for evil pur- poses of their own, to keep up the price of books, to the double detriment of the public and the authors. “ Cheap books I ” was and is its cry, though, to be sure, the cry sounds oddly insin- cere in Printing House Square. ‘ The Times ’ costs six times as much as the most of our daily papers, and three times as much as the others. When it under- took to publish a ‘History of the Boer War,’ it was not above charging a guinea net a volume for the privilege of possessing this masterpiece. Nor has the world yet for- gotten that it managed, by a system of adroit puffery, to sell the ninth edition of the ‘ EnoyolopaBdia Britannica’ at a price considerably higher than that at which it might be purchased second-hand round the corner. These simple facts persuade us that ‘ The Times’ ’ love of cheapness is not dis- interested. And, indeed, if the manager of the Book Club were prepared to go to the stake for the broader diffusion of literature, he has taken the wrong road to mar- tyrdom. If books are to be cheaper,—a doubtful question, to be decided by experts,—the cheapening process must begin at the other end. But, of course, it is not for cheap books that ‘ The Times ’ is fighting; it is fighting for the privilege of selling books cheaper than others — a very different cause. Even if the price of books did fall, we should have no security that ‘ The Times ’ Book Club would not continue its policy of underselling. Suppose the publishers issued their new books at 2s. 6d. net, they would be hawked within a few weeks of publication at 6d. a-piece, if ‘ The Times ’ were permitted to have its way. The controversy has been conducted by ‘ The Times ’ in a manner which, we are glad to think, is not consonant with the traditions of a great news- paper. The manager of the Book Club seems to have as little humour as courtesy. While he protests that the other side has lost its temper, the blows which he strikes are so wild and so ill-delivered that it is clear his own is past recovery. The figures by which he attempts to prove the greed of the publishers are naivete itself. He declares that a biography which is sold at 36s. costs 4s. to produce, and that therefore the all-round profits on the transaction amount to 800 per cent. In other words, books are things of paper and ink. The brain of the author need not be taken into the calculation; the expenses of publishing and advertisement are immaterial. If a book cost 4s. in paper and ink, and be sold at 36s., the all-round profit is 800 per cent. It is a pretty fairy-story, and if the manager of ‘ The Times ’ believes it, then the monopoly of the book trade is worth fighting for.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22406906_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
