The history of the book war : fair book prices versus Publishers' Trust prices / [Times Book Club].

  • Times Book Club.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The history of the book war : fair book prices versus Publishers' Trust prices / [Times Book Club]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    5 'X '11 | n * s ; THE BOOK WAR i INTRODUCTORY The struggle provoked by the concerted attack of the publishers upon The Times Book Club has now been going on for nearly a year. It is still going on, though less noisily than before, and indeed it is difficult to say when it will end, if we have regard to the remoter consequences of throwing the leaven of new ideas into the book trade. But now that the incoherent shouting of unexamined prejudice has died down, and a great quantity of adventitious matter has been got rid of, a connected account of the substantial issues and the real course of the fight may be useful to many who perhaps retain only somewhat fragmentary and con- fused impressions. It may be well to take a preliminary glance at the status quo ante. When The Times Book Club was started the publishing trade was, in all essential respects, precisely what it became in the reign of Queen Anne. In that reign the first Copyright Act was passed by the legislature, which fondly believed itself to be giving protection and encouragement to authors. The effect of that and subsequent amending Acts was, however, to give protection to publishers—