37 - The reprint trade

Summary

‘Printing-presses, every where, are chiefly employed in reprinting.’ In one succinct remark Robert Foulis of Glasgow defined what he perceived to be the heart of the book trade. If the goal of business is to maximize profits while minimizing risk, a publisher can hardly do better than to reprint books for which there is a proven demand. Risk can never be erased – reprinters must guard against flooding the market with more books than can be absorbed, watch for signs of changing taste, choose their points of sale wisely, manage their distribution networks efficiently and so forth – but at least the goods at the centre of the equation are known to attract buyers. Midway through the long eighteenth century Foulis saw with unusual clarity where the trade stood and what lay ahead. He anticipated the historical verdict of John Feather, who observed that back lists of proven titles, coupled with the reprint series and its progeny (like Everyman’s Library and the Penguin Classics), were ‘destined to become the economic pillars of the British publishing industry’.

To understand the dynamics of the reprint trade, an important subject generally neglected by book historians, it is necessary first to revisit the issue of copyright and to review how booksellers in Ireland and Scotland took advantage of their distance from London – in legal as well as geographical terms – to reprint the titles they wanted. Next to discuss is the cogent economic analysis put forward by members of the trade desperate for clarification of the often murky distinction between piracy and legitimate reprinting. Finally, an overview of the literary series that proliferated at the end of the century, once the statutory limits on copyright had been firmly settled, shows how vast and vital the reprint trade would become.