On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures/Preface 3

by Charles Babbage

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

 

---

 

The alterations in this Third Edition are few, and the additions are not extensive. The only subject upon which it may be necessary to offer any remark, is one which has already, perhaps, occupied a larger space than it deserves.

Shortly after the publication of the Second Edition, I received an anonymous letter, containing a printed page, entitled "Reply to Mr. Babbage;" and I was soon informed that many of the most respectable houses in the book trade inserted this paper in every copy of my work which they sold.

In the First Edition, I had censured, as I think deservedly, a combination amongst the larger booksellers, to keep the price of books above the level to which competition would naturally reduce it; and I pointed out the evil and oppression it produced. Of the numerous critics who noticed the subject, scarcely one has attempted to defend the monopoly; and those who deny the truth of my conclusions, have not impeached the accuracy of a single figure in the statements on which they rest. I have extracted from that reply the following—

"List of the Number of Copies of the First Edition, purchased by a few of the Trade on speculation."

	As stated by the Booksellers.			Number really purchased by the same on speculation.
	"Messrs. Simpkin and Co.	460"	–		100
	"Messrs. Longman and Co.	450"	–		50
	"Messrs. Sherwood and Co.	350"	–		50
	"Messrs. Hamilton and Co.	50"	–		8
	"Mr. James Duncan	125"	–		25
	"Messrs. Whittaker and Co.	300"	–		50
	"Messrs. Baldwin and Co.	75"	–		25
*	"Mr. Effingham Wilson	6"	–		6
*	"Mr. J. M. Richardson	25"	–		25
	"Messrs. J. and A. Arch	12"	–		6
*	"Messrs. Parbury and Co.	12"	–		12
	"Mr. Groombridge	25"	–		6
*	"Messrs. Rivington	12"	–		12
	"Mr. W. Mason	50"	–		25
*	"Mr. B. Fellowes	25"	–		25
	Total . . . .	1977			425

The author of the Reply, although he has not actually stated that these 1977 copies were "subscribed," has yet left the public to make that inference, and has actually suggested it by stating that this number of copies was "purchased on speculation," a statement which would have been perfectly true if the whole number had been purchased in the first instance, and at once. On reading the paper, therefore, I wrote to my publisher to obtain a copy of the "subscription" list, from which the column annexed to the above extract has been taken.

After the day of publication, the demand for the "Economy of Manufactures" was rapid and regular, until the whole edition was exhausted. There can, therefore, be no pretence for asserting that any copies, taken afterwards, were purchased "on speculation,"—they were purchased because the public demanded them. The two first houses on the list, for instance, subscribed 150, and if they will publish the dates of their orders, the world will be able to judge whether they took the remaining 760 "on speculation."

I have put an asterisk against the names of five houses, whose numbers taken "on speculation" are correctly stated.

It is right that I should add, that the delay which many have experienced in procuring the volume, has arisen from the unexpected rapidity of the sale of both Editions. I have made such arrangements that no disappointment of this nature is likely to arise again.

The main question, and the only important one to the public, is the Combination, and the Booksellers have yet advanced nothing in its defence. The principles of "free trade," and the importance of diffusing information at a cheap rate, are now too well understood to render the result of that combination doubtful; and the wisest course in this, as in all such cases, is—timely concession to public opinion. I shall now dismiss the subject, without fear that my motives for calling attention to it can be misunderstood, and hoping that the facts which I have elicited will advance the interests of knowledge.

 

Dorset Street, Manchester Square,
February 11, 1833.

Layout 2