§7. The relations between Author and Publisher in the Seventeenth Century. XIV. Book Production and Distribution, 1625–1800. Vol. 11. The Period of the French Revolution. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XI. The Period of the French Revolution.

XIV. Book Production and Distribution, 1625–1800.

§ 7. The relations between Author and Publisher in the Seventeenth Century.

Of the three principal agents—printer, bookseller, author—concerned in the production and distribution of books, the printer had his day in the sixteenth century. But, during the next century, a change in the balance of power took place, and the eighteenth century found the publishing-bookseller in the ascendant. The printer, ousted from his position, had then, for the most part, become the employe of the bookseller; while the author, though rapidly gaining ground, did not come into his kingdom until the approach of the nineteenth century.