After some trouble the police have succeeded in arresting about a dozen publishers’ clerks and others who had formed themselves into an organized association for the sale of stolen books. Upward of 10,000 volumes of science, fiction and history had been purloined from publishers’ or booksellers’ establishments. Six thousand of the volumes were found in the possession of a man who had three shops, in addition to a bookstall on one of the quays, where he only transacted business as a blind; his real work being the dispatch of the stolen property to the provinces.
Books. Ahhh….. books. 10,000 volumes would make a nice library, but this collection probably contained multiple copies of bestsellers. American bestsellers lists are considered to have started in 1895 with The Bookman: A Literary Journal. According to one researcher, the “bestseller list” didn’t cannibalize sales of low-popularity books, but rather increased the market for all books.
Of course, books are now commodities. Except for copyright questions (let’s not even start), just about the only organized theft in relation to books these days is the textbook racket. Ooops… Did I just say that?