You must know that the cheap press has, within a few months, made
a total change in our book markets. Every English book of any
name or credit is instantly converted into a newspaper or coarse
pamphlet, and hawked by a hundred boys in the streets of all of
our cities for 25, 18, or 12 cents; Dickens's Notes for 12
cents, _Blackwood's Magazine_ for 18 cents, and so on. Three or
four great New York and Philadelphia printing-houses do this
work, with hot competition. One prints Bulwer's novel yesterday,
for 35 cents; and already, in twenty-four hours, another has a
coarser edition of it for 18 cents, in all thoroughfares.--What
to do with my sealed parcel of manuscripts and proofs? No
bookseller would in these perilous circumstances offer a dollar
for my precious parcel. I inquired of the lawyers whether I
could not by a copyright protect my edition from piracy until an
English copy arrived, and so secure a sale of a few weeks. They
said, no; yet advised the taking a certificate of copyright,
that we might try the case if we wished. After much consulting
and balancing for a few hours, I decided to print, as heretofore,
on our own account, an edition, but cheap, to make the temptation
less, to retail at seventy-five cents. I print fifteen hundred
copies, and announce to the public that it is your edition, and
all good men must buy this. I have written to the great
Reprinters, namely to Park Benjamin, and to the Harpers, of New
York, to request their forbearance; and have engaged Little and
Brown to publish, because, I think, they have something more of
weight with Booksellers, and are a little less likely to be
invaded than Munroe. If we sell a thousand copies at seventy-five
cents, it will only yield you about two hundred dollars; if we
should be invaded, we can then afford to sell the other five
hundred copies at twenty-five cents, without loss. In thus