Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/403



HE "Number Publishers" may be looked upon as the modern pioneers of literature; their books are circulated by a peculiar method, among a peculiar public, almost entirely through the agency of their own canvassers, without the intervention of any other bookseller, and the works thus sold are scarcely known to the ordinary members of the publishing world. As the business is conducted by house to house visitation, a substratum of the public is reached which is entirely out of the stretch of the regular bookselling arm, though, when once a taste for reading has been developed, the regular bookseller cannot fail to benefit, as he will from every onward step in education and progress.

The Canvassing Trade is conducted by only a few houses in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. In our introductory chapter we caught a glimpse of some of the earlier members, but in modern times two names—Kelly, and, in a much broader sense, Virtue—stand forward prominently, and to these two we shall address ourselves.

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