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Henry B. Wheatley examines the historical fluctuations in the prices of books as an indicator of broader economic and intellectual development. The text analyzes how factors such as scarcity, mechanical innovation, and changing social values influence the market value of printed works over time.

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER XI PRICES OF VARIOUS CLASSES OF BOOKS

The British Museum does not possess a perfect copy, but it has some of Walpole’s own corrected proofs bound up in a volume. The Earl of Orford’s copy, interleaved and bound in morocco by Roger Payne, sold in 1895 for £37.

County histories vary in price, but they must always hold their ground and sell well, on account of the value of the information contained in their pages, which cannot easily be found elsewhere. They may be considered as eminently safe property. The following are the prices of a few of these:—

Atkyns’s (Sir R.) Gloucestershire, folio, 1712. Large paper (first and best edition).

Bryant (1807), £17, 17s. Dent (1827), £14, 14s. Sykes, £16. Nassau, 15 guineas. H. Perkins (1873), £29. Comerford (1881), £41. Beresford-Hope (1882), £38. Beckford (1882), £52.

Aubrey’s Surrey, 5 vols., 1719. Large paper.

Dent, £19, 5s. H. Perkins (1873), £32, 10s.

Blomefield’s Norfolk, 5 vols., 1739-75.

Comerford (1881), £160 (illustrated). Earl

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