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The printing office was frequented by book-sellers' apprentices, whose employers wanted jobs of printing done. Benjamin made their acquaintance, and they invited him to call at their stores to examine the books. There were several book-stores in Boston at that time, although the number of books was very limited as compared with the present time.
Pamphlets are rarely furnished for sale in the same manner as books, and when they are, book-sellers treat them with such indignity that they are commonly thrust aside as waste paper, almost as soon as they have appeared from the press.
He was so facetious and obliging and his conversation such that I took a great delight in his company." So it may be seen that the book-sellers were rivalled by the book-printers equally rich and witty though not so beautiful. To the credit of both callings, then and for a century to follow, redounds the fact that almost to a man they were deacons in the church.
Horace takes almost a cynical view in suggesting that, as some readers seek pleasure in poetry and others improvement, a poet will be more popular and make more money for the book-sellers if he mingles both elements. The extreme view of the moral value of poetry was taken by the educators of youth.
Twelve years ago I was invited to address the book-sellers of New York, in company with a well-known clergyman of the city, the Reverend Madison C. Peters. This gentleman's address made such an impression upon me that I recall it even at this distance: a string of jokes spoken with an effect of rapid-fire smartness, and simply reeking with commercialism.
He was never happier than when he became the owner of "Burton's Historical Collections," famous in England and America, and extensively sold, not only by book-sellers, but also by pedlars. They contained fact, fiction, history, biography, travels, adventures, natural history, and an account of many marvels, curiosities, and wonders, in a series of "twelve-penny books."
A thousand affectionate remembrances. No more ice, not much of echinoderms, plenty of fish, recall of ambassadors in partibus, and great severity toward the book-sellers, an infernal race, two or three of whom have been killed under me. I sigh to think of the trouble my horrible writing will give you.
There was no calling, no profession more reputable, more profitable in early colonial days than the trade of book-selling. President Dunster, of Harvard College, in his pursuance of that business, gave it the highest and best endorsement; and it must be remembered that all the book-sellers were publishers as well, books being printed for them at their expense.
The thing was impossible. In the first place a certain natural consciousness that men would have held him down to the level of his name, would have prevented him from rising above the Pepsine standard, and so haply withheld him altogether from attempting verse. Next, the book-sellers would refuse to publish, and the world to read them, on the mere evidence of the fatal appellation.
And though I have been in other instances a sinner in this sort, I do not recollect any of these novels in which I have transgressed so widely as in the first of the series. Among other unfounded reports, it has been said that the copyright of Waverley was, during the book's progress through the press, offered for sale to various book-sellers in London at a very inconsiderable price.
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