The establishment and rapid spread of general book reviewing in the second half of the eighteenth century clearly altered the balance of book publishing, introducing a new factor into the marketing and reading of books. In the Critical Review's striking phrase, reviewing 'inclosed what was once a common field', and, whether they liked or loathed it, fought it or exploited it, booksellers, authors and readers came to expect this further factor in the publishing relationship. Advertising and the sight of the physical volumes themselves were no longer necessarily the primary means of initial acquaintance with books. Before ever reading booksellers' advertisements in newspapers or books, before encountering title pages, prefaces and other physical aspects of books in shops or libraries, consumers might well already have seen, and sometimes paid for, the opinions of reviewers. Bookselling has never been the same.

Commercial ingenuity dominates the history of printing and publishing in Britain in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and in many ways booksellers, but also authors and readers, came to treat the various products of the printing press more as market commodities, more as goods directed to specific audiences. The expansion in literary commerce turned, like all other domestic industries, on the attractiveness of the product. The fundamental determinant of the market for new publications was price, and although it is extremely perilous to do so, one should try to establish the course of the relative price of new books. In establishing a wholesale price structure, the London publishers had to consider the mark-up necessary to make the participation of retailers worthwhile. Bookselling success derived far less from supply-led production than it did from the successful exploitation of cartels and techniques to create the appearance of new markets.

Mapping the location of printers, booksellers and allied businesses deepens our understanding of the commercial and cultural orientation of the book trade between the late seventeenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries. As this chapter seeks to demonstrate, the business of publishing and bookselling, characterized by increasing diversity and a steady expansion of production, was closely allied to the transformation of London during this period. With some important exceptions, seventeenth-century London printers continued to congregate in two broad areas of activity, one outside the City focused on Smithfield, and the other stretching broadly southwards from the cathedral to Paul's Wharf and London Bridge. Both old and new London venues sustained the advance of the eighteenth-century book trade. Several ancient sites had supported book-traders, some under the same distinctive trade sign, for generations stretching back before the Civil War, but recent research also reveals the recurrent reuse of many print and book shops by different trades.

A significant feature of eighteenth-century collecting is the rise of the scholar-collector, a phenomenon that coincides, not surprisingly, with the increasing interest in English genealogy and topography, antiquarianism, and the editing of earlier English literature, especially Shakespeare's works. By the fourth quarter of the eighteenth century, antiquarian book collecting and bookselling had developed into stable, flourishing and mutually supportive interests. Indeed, the bookseller's business was largely supported by collectors, most of whom were clergymen, antiquaries and scholars, often with a particular fondness for Shakespeare. Between 1695 and 1835, the collecting of antiquarian books and manuscripts moved from the country estate to the scholar's study, then returned from the study to the country estate or elegant town house. In the earlier period, many of the collections ended up in institutions; in the middle and later periods, many, but not all, went back to the auction rooms or booksellers' shops.