Abstract

"Books - 5c to $1"

One of the very largest booksellers in the U.S., if not the largest, actually objected to the reduced price. He preferred dear books; that is, he did not want books to be popularized in the only way in which they can be popularized. People have on the one hand a marked tendency upward in the price of first issues of books, particularly translated fiction and biographies, and on the other, an extraordinary outburst of reprint series. In pricing new books the motto seems to be, "All the traffic will bear," and apparently it will bear a good deal. Without materially enriching the physical appearance of a book, or at least confining the enrichment to the exercise of better taste, a novel can be sold today for three dollars that would have moved slowly yesterday at two.