inion
is occasionally sought as to the advisability of bringing out a new
edition of some book or books for which there seems to be a demand. A
book may have reached an unusually large sale in an ordinary edition;
he is asked if he thinks a finer and more expensive edition would be
warrantable. He is, however, chary in most cases about expressing an
opinion; and he never allows himself to become enthusiastic over any
book in the presence of a publisher or a publisher's representative.
For he feels that if he should display any eagerness, he would, in a
measure, commit himself to placing a large order for that particular
book.

With books being brought out at the rate they have been for the last
five years, the bookseller finds himself with little time or
inclination either to read or to think about the things to come. He
has enough to occupy his attention in his efforts to display and sell
the books he already has on hand. Witness the pyramids of volumes
towering ceilingward--many of them books that have been there for
several moons at least; and which are likely to remain there until
many more moons have waxed and waned.

I often wonder if the bookseller of fifty years ago ever dreamed of
what his successor would have to contend with in the way of new
publications. I recall a conversation I had two or three years ago
with a man more than seventy years of age. He had started out in his
business life as a clerk in a bookstore and he said to me, "There are
no booksellers to-day like there were when I was in the book business.
Then," he continued, "a bookseller was thoroughly posted as to the
contents of the books he had for sale; while now they know but little
more about a book than its title." I asked him if he ever stopped to
compare the conditions under which the bookseller of past days worked
with those under which the bookseller of to-day had to labor. I have
read that in 1855 there were but five hundred new books issued in the
United States. In 1905--fifty years later--there were seventy-five
hundred new books launched on the market. This did not include some
six hundred reprints.

When there was an average of less than ten new books published in a
week, it was an easy task for an intelligent salesperson to get a
fair knowledge of the contents of every one. But when books are ground
out at the rate of one hundred and fifty a week,--twenty-five a
day,--the task becomes an impossible one. Yet I have frequently bee