Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/452

412 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. : COLLECTING FOR THE COUNTRY TRADE. T 17"E have, by this time, given historico-biographical notices of publishers and booksellers, repre- senting very various phases of the "trade;" but we have still to show how, in the economy of publishing, and through an ingenious division of labour, the smaller booksellers in town, and all the booksellers in the country and the colonies, are kept constantly sup- plied with books and periodicals.. Before a new book is published, the work is taken round to the larger houses in the " Row," and other parts of London, and " subscribed," that is the first price to the trade, and the actual selling price to the public are quoted, and orders at the former price are given, according to the purchaser's faith in the ex- pected popularity of the work in question. The wholesale houses, in their turn, supply all the country, colonial, and smaller London orders, reaping, of course, a due advantage from having the volumes demanded already stowed in their warehouses. By far the largest business in this branch of the