United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It arrayed itself finally in a brand-new suit of grey flannel, altogether inexpressive of his rôle. He could not but feel that its behaviour compromised the dignity of the character he had determined to represent. It is not in his best coat and trousers that the book-dealer sets out on the dusty quest of the Aldine Plato and the Neapolitan Horace and the Aurea Legenda of Wynkyn de Worde.
The percentage offered by the subscription houses was only about half as much as that paid by the trade, but the sales were so much greater that the author could very well afford to take it. Where the book-dealer sold ten, the book-agent sold a hundred; or at least he did so in the case of Mark Twain's books; and we all thought it reasonable he could do so with ours.
Campbell, the third book-dealer, was "very industrious, dresses All-a-mode and I am told a young lady of Great Fortune is fallen in love with him." Of Mr. Usher, the remaining book-trader, Dunton asserts: "He makes the best figure in Boston.
There is a Republican book-dealer, who is a member of the Council, and on whom the Workmen's Club depends, and he has asked for information as to the facts from the Municipality, and the followers of Don Calixto and of Don Platon oppose this suggestion as an attack on the good-birth, the honour, and the reputation of such respectable personages.
In every case these volumes were rare and hard to come by, greatly in demand, 'the pick of the basket, and so forth. Well, I suppose that is commerce. At the time it seemed to me amply to justify all my father's lofty scorn and hatred for everything in any way connected with business. If only the book-dealer could have adopted Mr.
A young woman, Raïssa Petrovna, keeps house for the book-dealer, and as every one knows, they live like man and wife. In this queer environment, the faculties of the young man become sharpened, and serve him well. It does not take long for him to find out what they are hiding from him.
Another "young beau who boasts more Villany than he ever committed bought a many of books;" hence Dunton tolerated the "Young Spark's" demoralizing acquaintance. Mr. Thorncomb, another book-dealer from London, also bought of him, and, with the ever prevailing luck was "Acceptable to the Fair Sex, so extremely charming as makes 'em fond of being in his Company.
It may be added as an instance of methods availed of in London to trace missing books, that the librarian, knowing from the vacancies on the shelves what books had been abstracted, printed a list of them, sent it to every second-hand book-dealer in London, at the same time supplying it to the police, who circulate daily a list of missing property among all the pawn-brokers' shops in the city, and recovered all the books within twenty-four hours.
He told me that in some cases they were outlawed, banned or not translated wholly or fully, owing to the puritanism and religiosity of the day, but he gave me titles and authors to whom I might have access, and the address of an old book-dealer or two who could get them for me. He wanted to laugh, and he found occasion for doing so under the most serious, or at least semi-serious, circumstances.
He had begun life quite low down in the Parisian world on the quays as apprentice to Manasis, a jew book-dealer, who has been dead twenty-five years, whose money has been dispersed, whose name has been forgotten, of whom nothing remains on earth but the few hours a day of time filched from him by Pugin. Pugin had a hard and bitter fight for twenty years before he obtained recognition.
Word Of The Day