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Thu 1 Dec, 2011 02:49 am
The prices of ballads, collections of songs and eight-page patters were "48 to the Quire, and 20 Quires to the Ream, per Ream 4 shillings," "Penny History Books, 104 to 2s. 6d."
Does 104 refer to the number of the books 2 shillings and 6 pence can buy？
Perhaps, although that would be quite a discount. Two shillings six pence is 30 pence, 30 pennies (12 pence to the shilling). Perhaps, if this were the whole sale price to a book seller, that would explaing how one could get 104 penny books for 30 pence (-/2/6).
@Setanta,
Thank you very much! And what's the meaning of this sentence:" The King and the Cobler has a cut of the goose that laid the golden eggs." The passage is talking about using one picture in several different books.
@kkfengdao,
Cobler may mean cobbler (someone who makes shoes). The goose that laid the golden egg is a reference to a reliable source of good income, so one would assume that it is a reference to a money-maker upon which the King and "the Cobler" (whoever that may be) can rely. How that would relate to a picture, though, is beyond me. Perhaps if you transcribed the passage here. Make sure you include the sentence which precedes that sentence, and the one that follows.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
Perhaps, although that would be quite a discount. Two shillings six pence is 30 pence, 30 pennies (12 pence to the shilling). Perhaps, if this were the whole sale price to a book seller, that would explaing how one could get 104 penny books for 30 pence (-/2/6).
It refers to the content of a book, published in 1900, and there are these wholesale prices noted.
I think it may mean the the book "The King and the Cobler" has a picture (woodcut, etching, whatever) in it of the goose that laid the golden eggs, and that picture appears in several different books. Preparation of plates to print pictures was relatively expensive. Printers could buy stock illustrations, like they could buy type.
@MontereyJack,
http://www.ioba.org/newsletter/archive/9(2)/addenda.html
(both of the phrases asked about are on the linked page)
edit - need to find a better way to link this
@ehBeth,
Quote:The wholesale prices at which the productions of Dicey’s press were sold are also given, thus, old ballads, collections of songs, and eight-page patters were “48 to the Quire, and 20 Quires to the Ream, per Ream 4 shillings,” “Penny History Books, 104 at 2s. 6d,” while “Small Histories or Books of Amusement for Children, on various subjects, adorned with a Variety of Cuts, 100 at 6s., ditto stitch’d on embossed paper, 13 for 9d.” But the “Dutch Fortune Teller, discovering xxxiv. several questions, which Old and Young, Married Men and Women, Batchelors and Maids, delight to be resolved of” was evidently a superior article, for its price was thirteen shillings and sixpence per dozen, and “Robin Hood’s Garlands,” with twenty-nine neat cuts, were sold at sixteen shillings per hundred; the retail price of this was sixpence.
Source
(Forgot the link in my above response.)
@ehBeth,
http://ioba.org/newsletter/archive.html
select volume I, number 2
then select Ye Olde Booksellers under Addenda
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