lishing business, the trade expanded and increased with great vigour. The plan was strenuously supported by Mathew Carey, of Philadelphia, one of its projectors, who, by his powerful energy, contributed to its success. Publishing houses were soon established in all the large cities of the Union, but Boston for a considerable time was the chief publishing city of the United States. This position, however, she lost long since, and yet in 1855 the value of her book-trade was 5,500,000 dollars, exclusive of the transactions in paper and stationery.

In 1853 there were 355 book-publishing establishments in the United States. At present the number is more than 400. About three-fourths of these are located in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston, the rest being principally in Cincinnati, Charleston, New Orleans, Buffalo, Auburn, Albany, Louisville, Chicago, St. Louis, and Hartford. There are more than 3000 booksellers who dispense the publications of these 400 publishers, besides 6000 or 7000 general dealers who connect the trade in books with the ordinary stock of a "country store."

Some of these publishing establishments are immense. That of the Harpers, in New York, covers half an acre. The building alone cost £40,000! Their annual sales have been estimated at 2,000,000 volumes, and they employ not far from 600 persons.

J. B. Lippincott and Co., in Philadelphia, are said to have the largest bookdistributing house in the world. It was established more than thirty years ago, by John Grigg, Esq., one of the most sagacious, prudent, and acute men living, and the father of the present gigantic and admirable American publishing system. Mr. Grigg has been a liberal encourager of American authorship, and his successors pursue his judicious example. Mr. Lippincott, the intelligent head of the firm above mentioned, is an enterprising gentleman, of enlarged views and extraordinary business capacity.

In the first half of 1855, this house had about 10,000 octavo pages of new standard works put into type, and issued from two to fifteen editions of each work. They have the stereotype plates of over 200 volumes, and sell upwards of 50,000 Bibles and Prayer-books every year. Their wholesale customers number about 5000, and for two months of each year they ship about seventy 300 lb. boxes of books daily, or ten tons of literature every twenty-four hours. In 1853 their business was estimated at about 2,000,000 dollars. A single Boston house, but recently established, sold in a very short time 26,500 copies of Henry Ward Beecher's Lectures; and the same firm, in the short space of one year, sold 46,000 copies of Shady Side, and in nine months 15,000 copies of Mrs. Child's Life of Hopper. They published 40,000 copies of the Lamplighter in the first two months of its existence, and about 295,000 copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin in all.

The house of D. Appleton and Co. have about 800,000 dollars invested in their business, and their sales amounted, in 1853, to quite 1,000,000 dollars. George P. Putnam, of the same city, is also extensively engaged in the publishing business, and during the five years ending with 1856, issued from 400 to 450 volumes, four-fifths of which, at least, were original.

Messrs Childs and Peterson of Philadelphia, one of the most aspiring firms

of the United States have circulated quite 60,000 copies of Dr. Kane's Arctic Explorations; and the sale of M. Allibone's Critical Dictionary, they have in press, will probably not fall much short of this number.

Phinney and Ivison circulate over 500,000 of Sanders' Reading Books, and 100,000 copies of Thomson's Arithmetical works yearly. The annual sale of Smith's Geography is about 100,000 volumes; and the firm of A. S. Barnes and Co., of New York, sold 800,000 volumes, mostly school-books, in 1853. Another house in the same city have sold, since 1850, more than 300,000 volumes of Cooper's Novels; and of a single modern book, by a comparatively unknown author, they sold 30,000 copies in the short period of thirty days. Mr. Scribner has disposed of more than 200,000 volumes of Headley's Works, and about 75,000 copies of Ik. Marvel's pleasing books. A firm in Hartford have sold 125,000 copies of the Cottage Bible within a few years; and another publishing house, at Auburn, sold 70,000 copies of Fanny Fern's first work.

In the infancy of American publishing 500 copies were a good edition. From 1827 to 1837, the ordinary sale of a successful book was from 1000 to 1500 copies; whereas now 1500 of any book can be disposed of, and it is not uncommon to print 10,000. The sale of Irving's works is by hundreds of thousands

Small editions, in fact, are the exception; and immense editions of good English works are quite common. There have been sold in the United States in five years, 80,000 volumes of the 8vo edition of the Modern British Essayists: 60,000 volumes of Macaulay's Miscellanies, in 3 vols.; 100,000 copies of Grace Aguillar's works in two years; more than 50,000 of Murray's Encyclopædia of Geography; 10,000 of Mc Culloch's Commercial Dictionary: and 10,000 of Alexander Smith's Poems in a few months. The American sale of Thackeray's works is quadruple that of England; Dickens' have sold by millions of volumes. Bleak House alone sold to the amount of 250,000 copies in volumes, magazines, and newspapers. Bulwer's last work reached about two-thirds of that number, and more than 100,000 copies of Jane Eyre have been disposed of.

Mr. Goodrich, the venerable Peter Parley, in his recently published Recollections of his life, gives some valuable facts respecting the growth of the publishing and bookselling business in the United States. He states the value and description of the books published in the country in 1820, to be as follows:

In 1830 this had increased to 3,500,000 dollars, the school-books alone being valued at 1,100,000; and in 1840, there was a further increase to 5,500,000 dollars, the school-books then standing at the value of 2,000,000. In 1850 the trade had more than doubled, the amounts being as follows:

He estimates the book-trade of 1856 at 16,000,000 dollars; and as his statement is curious, we print it. It is proper, however, to say that this is a low estimate. The Book Trade of Boston is here put down at too low a sum. was 5,500,000 in 1855.

It

According to the same intelligent authority, the number of persons, in 1842, employed in book publishing, printing, bookbinding, type founding, engraving, plate-printing, and paper-making in the United States, was 418,048, and the amount of business annually done in all these callings was 28,348,912 dollars. 12,000,000 of volumes, 3,000,000 of Nos. of magazines, and 300,000,000 of newspapers were produced annually, the entire capital invested in their production being 16,600,000 dollars, of which 4,000,000 dollars were invested alone in books and magazines.

It is proper to notice here the wonderful change in the relative proportions of British and American books published in the United States since 1820. Mr. Goodrich is an authority for the statement, and we take his word unhesitatingly. He says the consumption in 1820, of American works in the Union, was 30 per cent.; that of British books 70 per cent. In 1830 the consumption of American works was 40 per cent. to 60 per cent of British works. In 1840 it was 55 per cent. of American, to 45 per cent. of British. In 1850 it was 70 per cent. of American to 30 per cent. of British; and in 1856, it was estimated, on reliable data, that the consumption of American books had increased to 80 per cent., while that of British books had decreased to 20 per cent.; or from 70 per cent. of the entire consumption in 1820, to but 20 per cent. in 1856.

This sketch of publishing and bookselling in the United States gives a tolerable idea of the literary demands of the people and the extent of business

done. Already large fortunes have been made by both authors and publishers, and but few other industrial pursuits are more honoured in the country. Within the memory of men now living, the American book-trade has sprung from an incipient to a flourishing condition; and yet, great as has been its progress within the past few years, we look upon it as still in its infancy. Our mental eyes see a future advancement before which all past achievements sink into insignificance; for the time is not far distant when American readers, through the present admirable system of public schools, and the growing power of an able press, will be counted by millions instead of by thousands, and both American and British authors will have their minds brought into contact with that of every intelligent being in a nation of fifty millions of people.

It is quite apparent the age of pernicious literature has nearly past. The tendency is upwards, and public attention is now directed to healthy sentiment. Works of fiction, to be read, must contain something of poetry, elevated sentiment, historical portraiture, or incitement to social improvement. And history, to be popular, must be truthful and ably written. Compilations without ability, and love stories devoid of moral precept, are becoming the garbage of literature.

CHAPTER XII.

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.

ONE of the most powerful engines in the creation of a taste for literature among the masses in the United States is the Newspaper and Periodical Press. The extent and character of this instructor of the public mind, when once fully described, will in some degree explain that universal love of reading so observable in the Republic; and we deem a brief history of it essential to our present object.

This great power in the dissemination of knowledge does not appear to have been extensively used during the colonial periods of American letters; but it is worthy of note, alike in an historical point of view, and as exhibiting the wants of the settlers of New England, and the enterprise of the times, that a news-placard was printed in Boston, in 1689, and that a newspaper was begun in the same city, on the 25th of September, 1690. But one copy of this is now known to exist, and that is in the State Paper Office in London. It attracted the attention of the legislative authorities, and as they alleged it came out contrary to law, and contained reflections of a very high nature," it was suppressed. It was to all intents and purposes a newspaper, being devoted to the record of passing events, domestic and foreign; and was therefore really the first of its kind issued in what is now the United States, and as such deserves mention in history. As a further item of historical interest which has been strangely overlooked by American historians, we may here state that in the same year, Governor Fletcher, of New York, caused a

London Gazette to be reprinted in that colony. It contained the details of an engagement with the French.

This first Boston newspaper effort was not forgotten, but in due time was successfully revived. In 1704, one John Campbell, a bookseller, then Postmaster in Boston, established a weekly journal under the title of the Boston News Letter, the publication of which was continued until 1776, a period of 72 years. This was followed by the Boston Gazette, begun December 21, 1719; and on the next day the American Weekly Murcurie was issued from the printing office of William Bradford at Philadelphia, being the third successful American newspaper. The fourth attempt, which resulted favourably, was made on the 18th of August, 1721, by James Franklin, an elder brother of Dr. Franklin, in the establishment at Boston of the New England Courant. It was for a time issued in the name of Benjamin Franklin as publisher, then an apprentice in the office, and was discontinued in 1727.

Somewhat more than four years after the publication of the first number of the above-named journal, or on the 16th of October, 1725, William Bradford issued the fifth successful American newspaper under the title of The New York Gazette, it being the first journal established in that city. Prior to its appearance no journal had been published between Boston and Philadelphia. Bradford continued its publication between 16 and 17 years, after which it was issued for a time by James Parker.

There was not much increase in the number of newspapers in the colonies up to 1754. In that year there were four in New England, all published in Boston, with an average circulation of but six hundred copies. There were no papers then printed in either Connecticut or New Hampshire, but Pennsylvania and New York each had two.

From 1754 until 1776 the increase was considerable. Seven papers were then published in Massachusetts, one in New Hampshire, two in Rhode Island, four in Connecticut, four in New York, nine in Pennsylvania, two each in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, three in South Carolina, and one in Georgia, or thirty-seven in what afterwards became the Thirteen original States of the American Union; and nine of these were still published in 1810.

It does not appear that a journal was then published in New Jersey, although a Magazine had been printed there as early as 1752.

All the above journals, with one exception, that of the Advertiser of Philadelphia, which was published twice a week, because Congress assembled there, were weeklies, which must not be forgotten in the further consideration of this subject.

According to the statistics of the period, the number of newspapers in the United States had increased in 1801 to about 200, or 166 more than existed in 1776. Of these, several were dailies: and it is proper here to state that the first American journal of this description was issued at Philadelphia, in 1784. It was called the Pennsylvania Packet; or, the General Advertiser, and was continued under the name of The Daily Advertiser, until about the year 1837. Another daily, entitled The New World, printed in 4to, on half a sheet of medium, was published every morning and evening, Sundays excepted, at Philadelphia, in 1796; but the novel experiment of two daily papers from