cents.[1] The sale of these "Extras," most of which were foreign novels, was large for that time, twenty to thirty thousand copies of a title often distributed by one publisher in two or three weeks.[2] The regular book publishers, led by the Harpers, soon lowered their own prices, and offered handier sized books at little more than the cost of the ungainly quartos. With such competition the popularity of the quartos waned and two or three years later they were discontinued.
Following the unsuccessful attempt of the literary newspapers to provide cheap literature, there was a gradual rise of book prices from the low level existing from 1842 to 1845. Between this time and the 1870's there were only a few attempts to publish good books at very low prices, none of which met with success.
The years from 1870 to 1891, with which this study is primarily concerned, represent a unique period in the history of publishing in the United States. During this period great quantities of books, mostly foreign fiction, were published in cheap editions at very low prices, generally without payment to the authors. The period so characterized closed in 1891 with the passage of the international copyright law: in this study the beginning of the period has been set, perhaps arbitrarily, at 1870, although the year 1877 marks the first great outburst of pirated[3] books. Unrestricted publication of cheap pirated books did not come about without a more or less gradual beginning, however, and it is for the purpose
- ↑ Southern Literary Messenger, 10:449-69 (1844).
- ↑ New World, 5:354 (1842).
- ↑ The term "pirate" is inexact, for since there was no provision in this country for the copyright of works by foreign authors, the publishers who appropriated their books without payment to the authors were breaking no law except possibly an ethical one.
