Strong. Two Lectures upon the Relations of Civil Law Wagstaffe.-The Student's Guide to Human Osteology, By Walsingham.-O'er and Moor Fen. A Novel. Osgood. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS. RESOLVED, That this Convention recognize the PUBLISHERS' WEEKLY as the established organ of the entire trade, and recommend it to publishers as the medium through which they should make their "first announcement" of books they propose to publish, and the full title of all books immediately on publication.-AMERICAN BOOK TRADE ASSOCIATION. A. S. BARNES & CO., New-York. The Memoirs of Rev. Charles G. Finney. Written by Himself. With portrait. Edited by President Fairchild. BOERICKE & TAFEL, New-York. Diseases of the Ear, by Henry C. Houghton, M.D. T. J. BROWN, EAGER & CO., Toledo, O. Home Cook-Book. By the Ladies of Toledo. Benefit Orphan's Home and Home for Friendless Women. 12, Pp. 250. $1.50. (Dec. 20.) CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, Phila. Plain Directions for Accidents, Emergencies, and Poisons, and Care of the Sick. Enl. ed. By a Fellow of the Coll. of Physicians of Philadelphia. One Hundredth Thousand. E. H. CUSHING, Houston, Texas. Texas Reports. 42d vol. Terrell and Walker, Reporters. $7.50. (January.) Texas Reports. Vol. 12. New ed. Annotated by John Sayles. $7.50. DODD & MEAD, New-York. W. F. DRAPER, Andover, Mass. A New Edition of A Harmony of the New Testament in Greek, with an Appendix on the Principles of Textual Criticism. By Prof. Frederic Gardiner, D.D. 8°. $3. Principles of Textual Criticism, with a Table representing the parts of the Text contained in each of the Greek Uncials. 8°. 75 c.; pap., 50 c. A Commentary on the Psalms. By Canon J. J. Stewart Perowne, D.D. 2 vols. 8°. HURD & HOUGHTON, New-York. Manual of the History of the New Testament Period. By Dr. Emil Schürer. Transl. by Prof. P. H. Steenstra. KAY & BROTHER, Philadelphia. The Law of Agency and Agents. By Francis Wharton, LL.D. 8°. LEE & SHEPARD, Boston. The Reading Club. No. 3. Edited by George M. LINDSAY & BLAKISTON, Philadelphia. On Inhalation. By J. Solis Cohen, M.D. 8°. C. P. SOMERBY, New-York. Life of George Washington. By Rev. J. S. C. Percy Bysshe Shelley, as a Philosopher and ReformAbbott. (Am. Pioneers and Patriots.) er. By Charles Sotheran. RECENT ENGLISH ..9s. Balmes, Rev. J.-Letters to a Sceptic on Religious Matters. Post 8°. Simpkin........... Adams, F.-The Free School System of the United Fraser, H.-Handy Book of Ornamental Conifers, etc.. States. 8°. Chapman & Hall.. ..6s. PUBLICATIONS. ..6s. Post 8°. Blackwood & Sons..... Gallenga, A. - Italy Revisited. 2 vols. 8°. S. Tinsley. £1 105. Garvagh, Lord.—The Pilgrim of Scandinavia. Post 8°. ..105. Canova, A., Works of, in Sculpture and Modelling. 4°. Chatto & Windus... .£1 11s. 6d. Guthrie, J. C.-The Vale of Strathmore, its Scenes and Legends. Post 8°. Hamilton.. .......75. 6d. Hartley, W. N.-Air, and its Relations to Life: Lectures. 12°. Longmans... ....6s. Sayce, Rev. A. H.-Elementary Grammar of Assyrian Watson, W. 8.-Diseases of the Nose and its Accessory Language. 4°. Bagster.... ......18s. .95. Cavities. 8°. Lewis. The Underselling Shops. DURING the rush of custom at holiday times, there are usually opened in the principal cities establishments under such fine names as the "Importers' and Manufacturers' Depots," which throw out flaming placards, advertising the peculiar facilities which their capitalists have for buying goods cheaper than anybody else, and which show a considerable stock of toys, games, fancy goods, and books. They undersell regular dealers in all these lines. Their proprietors are usually unknown speculators, who buy auction goods or dead stock, and take their chances of getting rid of it by New Year's. Sometimes such stores confine their attention to books alone. Two other cases are just now "worritting" the retail dealers in New-York: one, a sale chiefly of old trade-sale stock, with lines of poets and standards not sold very much in the regular trade-virtually a "dead stock" case; the other the bona-fide clearing-out sale of Messrs. Sheldon & Co., in closing their retail business, a sale which is similar to the results of a failure in business. Then there are the regular undersellers, some of whom have not yet been headed off, although things are working to that end, and, lastly, the dollar stores. Now, all this is of course discouraging, and some persons are ready to cry out that the reform is a failure. We should not say that the movement had been a failure, even if it were never mentioned again from now till Doomsday, for it has already opened the eyes of wholesalers and retailers alike throughout the country to the true methods of doing business, and the necessity of standing by regular prices and the regular trade. The country is already much better off for the reform. But this class of complainers are expecting too much. The work of the trade organizations, to be sure and safe, must necessarily be slow. They have done much so far, but there is much left for them to do, which will be done if individual dealers simply, each man for himself, stand by their colors in the mean time. For every profitless sale they have lost, by the restrictions they have voluntarily put themselves under, they have twice and thrice made up by Wordsworth, W.-Prose Works. Ed. by Rev. A. B. Grosart. 3 vols. 8°. Moxon..... .£2 25. Wylie, Rev. J. A.-The History of Protestantism. Illustr. Vol. 1. 4°. Cassell.... .:9s. the improvement, directly and indirectly, in their trade. We wish to say to any of the impatients, first, that the kind of underselling noted above does not, after all, hurt them so much as they at first think; secondly, that a portion of it can never be stopped at all, but must be suffered by the book trade, in common with other classes of trades. Until the millennium comes with a device to prevent people being unsuccessful in business, better than our present admirable "platform," people will continue to fail, or to become honestly embarrassed, and their goods be thrown on the market. Such unfortunate occurrences as these every trade must stand, and we have only to point out, in this as in many cases, the danger of trying to make any rule do too much, and of breaking it by the tension. The logic of events is a factor in every movement. But, to return, these stores do not do a great deal of harm. It was the cut-throat competition in the regular trade that hurt. These shops are stocked chiefly with cheap English goods, lines of poets and Robinson Crusoes that the trade has tired of, and dead stuff that the publisher is rightly glad to get rid of at any price. So far as we can judge, these English goods, and the lines of poets at enormous discounts, will gradually come to be known as undersold goods, and so handled, and if the publisher has any desire to cultivate the regular trade, his indirect encouragement of underselling will have its logical outcome in the avoidance by the regular trade of this dollar-store stock. The publishers are generally falling in with the idea that they can not sell the same line of goods for underselling and to the regular trade, and this is the great point gained. The dollar stores and 'depots" may lie about retail prices, and sell their "bargains" to the crowd that throng them, but the regular dealer still offers the advantage of an assortment of books which they can not sell, fine bindings, a choice of editions, intelligent assistance to the bookbuyer, and a reputation for honesty; and if he can't hold his own under those conditions, why, nothing can save him from going to the wall, and he might as well go at once. If, instead of grumbling about trade going to other shops, when in fact there is in a dull year no trade to go, each would stand stoutly by his own work, there would be less complaint and less need for it, A REPLY from President Randolph in the Observer of this week, copied elsewhere, makes some strong points against the letter we reprinted in our last issue. business forbids. To the masses of the people miscellaneous books are luxuries and of limited consumption. All persons must have food and clothing. A town of 3000 inhabitants may be satisfied with a few school-books, kept in a dingy store, and yet profitably support three or four establishments for the sale of food and general merchandise. At these places the main staples of consumption, in ordinary quantities, vary but little from the prices of the great centres, while the average profits of all the reputable dealers are about the same. Should any of them desire to close out the unsalable or surplus stock, this can readily be done, without any very serious loss upon the original cost, for the consumers are always needy and abundant. Now, the depreciation in book stock is dise," and a forced sale, if it can be made, owvastly greater than that of any other " merchan A WESTERN dealer, who recently brought an underselling case before the member of the Arbitration Committee at Chicago, incloses to us a reply from the latter in which he conveys the impression that the retail price agreementing to the limited number of consumers, must allows 20 per cent to everybody, and adds "if there is any rule that any two persons can understand alike, I do not know it." The member does not seem to have read the rule on which his committee's work is based, or else he has overlooked the fact that the rule was modified at Niagara to eliminate this very misunderstanding from it as adopted at Put-in Bay. A CORRESPONDENT inquires whether the 20 per cent rule does not cover the case of magazine clubbing, so as to prevent a house standing by the agreement, from offering its own periodicals in combination at reduced prices. It seems to us this would be stretching the rule a good ways; certainly it would be impracticable to attempt it. The business basis of the reform in books is simply the fact that the publishers can't profitably both sell through the retail trade and cultivate trade" outside of it, wherefore they prefer to support the retail trade. If publishers of periodicals prefer to reach the public directly, as many of them do, there is nothing to say, unless the trade can make it profitable to them to come over to the other system. The Book Trade Combination." (From the New-York Observer.) IT is not to be expected that the Observer can spare space for a protracted discussion of the Book Trade Reform, but some of its editors are authors as well as editors, and the question is one of interest to all intelligent readers. I therefore crave indulgence to reply to a communication in your issue of the 25th ult., and which you state to be from a publisher and an author. It has had my respectful and careful attention, although it is evident that the writer's connection is with the press, and not with the trade, for as a book publisher he would be entitled always to buy at the trade discount. The writer's fundamental error is his comparison of the book trade with other manufacturing and traffics. This the very nature of the always result in great loss. There is nothing so dead as a dead book, unless it be an old newspaper or magazine, and the mere offering of it at a very low price will not at once secure a customer. Any one could readily buy to-day of dealers and publishers in this city, tens of thousands of volumes at a discount of 75 per cent from the published prices. It may be a mistaken policy, but a retail price for the book and the newspaper has always been fixed by the publisher, and probably always will be, for the simple reason that the .business can not be managed in any other way. You fix a selling price for your paper to the subscriber, and have at one time offered a percentage for new subscribers. I fix a selling price for my book to the private buyer, and another for the trade. The great majority of the publishers sell the books of other publishers as well as their own, and the profit needed by the publisher, as well as the dealer, to secure tity, based on experience, as stated in my first a fair remuneration, is an ascertainable quanletter, and I venture the assertion that every publishing or bookselling house that has assumed to prosecute its business on any other misfortunes or dire disaster. The history of rate of profit has, sooner or later, met with the trade in this country will furnish more than enough of such examples. Several persons within my recollection have assumed to furnish third less money, and have failed hopelessly; as good a religious journal as yours for one and scores upon scores of dealers in books have perished in the attempt to live on such a percentage of profit as your correspondent names. His statement that two or three weeks will settle the salable quality of a book, does not accord with my experience. The sale of a book is largely dependent on circumstances over which the dealer has no control, and yet he must buy the book, notwithstanding the fact that the public taste, interest, or opinion is very fickle and precarious. Authors will persist in writing books, and publishers in printing them, and what will please one buyer does not interest another; and the bookseller's counter is after all the only place where the author can be fully presented to the reader. So, too, the sale of one book leads to the sale of another copy of the same, and it is often months before the real sale of a new book begins. The variety of tastes creates the great variety in books, and the dealer who fully understands his business knows that if he does not keep up his stock, even in the absence of an immedtate call for certain publications, he will soon be without customers for either new or old. And here is the point of cost as well as loss in the conduct of the business. Your correspondent would expect to find on my shelves a copy of the Englishman's Hebrew Concordance, and he would; and yet not a copy has been sold in six months, but may be sold to-morrow, only to be replaced, perhaps to be held again for six months, and in either case disposed of at a very moderate profit. And so every well-appointed bookstore is obliged to carry thousands of dollars in a stock, not of dead books, but of slow books, and thus anticipate the higher wants of the public; while in every such store there may unfortunately also be found a supply of depreciated stock which the dealer would be glad to sell at any price the buyer might be pleased to offer. I cordially agree with your correspondent that there are ruts in the trade," and that quality and salableness are too much lost sight of." But who shall decide for us? Certainly I never published or bought a book which I thought would not sell. Yet, alas! how many have I both published and bought that did not. The author failed to please, the buyers did not buy! I am safe in saying that not one miscellaneous book in four published ever pays an actual profit to the publisher, for the reason that the sale does not reach a remunerative number. Reduction in price at the outset would be of little use. If the book at a fair price will not strike of itself, it is seldom that the publisher can make it. The first thousand copies published rarely, if ever, cover the cost of the stereotype plates. This is distributed over supposed editions of from 2000 to 5000 copies, and when a sale is limited to only 1000 copies, while the dealers may dispose of those they have purchased at a profit, the publisher has incurred a positive loss. Your correspondent truly says that "the middle man" (in this case the dealer) "is the best judge of what profit he can live on ;" and it is this very class all over the country which has declared that the maintenance of the retail price, after excepting the classes of privileged buyers, is indispensable to his success. As I have before said, this reform movement did not originate with the publishers, but with the deal ers, who are the experts and sufferers in the case. Will you permit me to add that no class in the community has a deeper or more vital interest in this reform movement than the authors. Their prosperity can not be attempted or assured without the active co-operation of the book-seller. When your correspondent has written and published a book, it is of the highest importance to him that it be placed on the booksellers' shelves in all parts of the land. It can not be kept there if it does not pay the seller a living profit, and every underseller of other than dead or dying stock, by breaking retail prices, lessens the consumption of good books, by lessening the ability of the legitimate dealer to keep up his assortment. From a Clergyman and Librarian A LIBRARIAN in New-Jersey, who is also a clergyman, speaks of the WEEKLY as "the most valuable and useful publication of the kind for our purposes of any we receive;" he urges the publication in a volume of the Evening Post's "very interesting articles on the Bookmakers.' He expresses full and hearty sympathy with the reform movement, and advocates cutting off all discounts to professional men as such; all except to the regular trade and to libraries, who do not buy for their personal profit, but for the public. "I am a clergyman, and I know no reason why I should not pay the same as my parishioner. We may be standing at the same counter and buying the same book, and it is very embarrassing for me to ask a discount that is not granted to him. It makes me ashamed to do it. It makes my neighbor feel that he is unfairly dealt by, and the bookseller ashamed of doing what seems, and is, an unfair thing to his other customer. I have often paid the full price for a book rather than condescend to this species of official begging. Reduce the retail price somewhat and make it up by treating all alike. Many, if not most honorable professional men, will approve and sustain the Association in wiping out these unworthy distinctions, which are so embarrassing to all parties. "I am also a librarian, and would most cheerfully sustain the 20 per cent rule, and be perfectly satisfied, if you treat all alike. the only safe and honorable ground. That is M. B." [WE may state that the question of the pub lication of the Post articles in a volume was considered by that journal, but that it was decided to leave the matter with the author, Mr. J. W. Bartlett, now of 949 K Street, Washington. We should be glad if he could receive sufficient encouragement to print, but, as a rule, the call for such articles in volume form is not sufficient to justify their collection.-ED.] THE life of John Locke, by Mr. H. R. FoxBourne, which is now completed, will be published early next year. The editor has discovered the original manuscripts of several short It may be well to add, to prevent misappre-treatises written by the philosopher but never hension, that under the rules of the Associa- | published, among them, An Essay Concern. tion a maximum discount of 20 per cent from ing Toleration," penned fourteen years before the retail price is still allowed to public libra- the first of Locke's famous "Letters on Toleraries, including circulating and Sunday-school tion," and many interesting medical notes. |