=Bookselling.=—Even those librarians who think that they know something about buying books, can with decided advantage read the article on Bookselling. The modern system goes back almost to the invention of printing. The earliest printers were also editors and booksellers but as they were not able themselves to dispose of the entire output of their presses they had agents at most of the universities. The religious dissensions following the Reformation created a great demand for books and there were troublous times for both printers and booksellers. In the English copyright act of 1709 it is ruled that if any person shall think the published price of a book unreasonably high he may make complaint to the archbishop of Canterbury and to certain other persons named who shall thereupon examine into his complaint and if well founded reduce the price, and any bookseller charging more than the price agreed upon shall be fined for every copy sold. Unfortunately this law was never enforced. Were there such a court of appeal today it would have a full docket! In the paragraph on bookselling in this country it is pointed out that half the names in the “so-called American catalogue of books” printed between 1820 and 1852 are British, the works of Scott, Byron, Moore, Southey and Wordsworth having been printed here without the payment of any royalties. Through the growth of intercourse with England and the appearance on the literary horizon of native writers of ability, a decided change was gradually produced in the American book trade and the conditions here became more like those of Europe. =Publishing.=—The subject of bookselling is treated still further in the article on Publishing which is in a way a continuation of it. It gives more historical detail concerning the early stages of this once combined business, with a good deal on that topic of interest to librarians and the book-buying public,—the net price question. The early separation of publishing from bookselling is touched upon, and the emergence of publishers as a separate class is outlined. The transitory phenomenon of the man of letters assisting the publisher in an advisory capacity as to the suitability of manuscripts submitted for publication is an interesting chapter in the expansion of the publishing business. Publishing being today largely a commercial affair, the literary reader has in the main been supplanted by the man of business with an aptitude for estimating how many copies of a given book can be sold. One London publisher has of recent years paid no salary to his reader but has given him a small commission upon every copy that was sold of any book published on his recommendation. What is wanted by the publisher is only too often not literary quality but commercial value.