s wholesale and retail consequences it
will rise up for you, if bad, against you, even here in this partly
Christianized America."

But the bookman no longer has the opportunity of selecting for a
community. The conditions are changed. In these days of extended
advertising in newspapers and magazines, the reading public learns all
about the new books before going near a bookstore. The demand is
created outside the shop; the dealer must be prepared to supply it.

Customers tell him not only what to keep on sale, but what not to keep
on sale. The writer of the present article has been admonished not to
have in stock the writings of many of the great authors--Darwin,
Huxley, Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, Miss Braddon, George Eliot, Mrs.
Humphry Ward, Balzac, Byron, and many others. A letter received about
fifteen years ago read something like this:--

"I was much surprised yesterday, while passing through your bookstore,
to find a number of immoral books there for sale. I copied down the
names of a few of them--'An Earnest Trifler' and 'A Desperate
Chance.'"

There were four others the titles of which I do not recall; but the
two mentioned made an impression on my mind, because I had read the
first one only a short time before; and knew it to be a perfectly pure
story. The second one happened to have been written by an acquaintance
of mine, J. D. Jerrold Kelly, now a commander in the United States
Navy. If he ever reads this article he will probably be informed for
the first time that he is accused of having written an immoral story.
The funny part of the incident was that the letter in question closed
with the following: "I will admit that I have not read any of these
books. I would not soil my mind by reading them; but I think the
titles are quite sufficient to lead many a weak-minded person astray."
I leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.

I said that the bookseller does not necessarily come into contact with
author or publisher in the building of a book. He is, however,
frequently called upon by authors of the class that might be termed
unsuccessful. These want his help. One came to me with a proposition
that I take five thousand copies of a book he had written. "It's a
wonderful book," he said. "Nothing like it has been written; and it's
bound to make a great stir. It will revolutionize society completely.
All it needs is for you to 'push' the sale." When I asked to see the
book, he said it was not published