ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the complex interaction of authors, publishers, patrons, booksellers, libraries, reviewers and readers in the production of literature in the years 1800–1830. With rare exceptions, most literary works were published in editions of 500–1,500 copies and sold, especially in the case of novels, chiefly to libraries. Literary Annuals were lavishly produced gatherings of verse, prose and engraved plates, published in advance of the Christmas season. Financial survival, though, derived from the publication not of literary but of moral, religious and educational works, in particular a series of conduct books written by Mrs Ann Taylor and Miss Jane Taylor of Ongar. As yet, periodical literature was not; and the art of printing seems long to have preceded the art of reading. The influence of another sort of literary institution, the circulating library, was especially associated with fiction. Yet even while fiercely professing independence, writers typically draw on a range of institutional collaborators, or are affected by them.
