Prices of English Books at Auction c.1680

Abstract

Scholars have noted the significance and spread of the second-hand book trade in seventeenth-century England, but so far little information about the books and their prices has been available. This essay examines the evidence from annotations to an early book auction catalogue relating to ten auctions that took place in London between 1676 and 1682, providing the prices for thousands of books. A comparison between the prices for which books sold at auction, and the prices of the same books new in the Term Catalogues in the decade prior to these auctions reveals that most of the relatively new books sold at auction for a considerable discount off their retail price. For older books, the prices primarily depended on condition and demand rather than the expense of producing the book or its age. This shows a turn towards a customer-driven pricing structure which has significant implications for how we understand the connection between book prices and readers in the late seventeenth century.