BOOKSELLER, one who trades in books, whether he prints them himself, or gives them to be printed by others.
Booksellers are in many places ranked among the members of universities, and entitled to the privilege of students, as at Tubingen, Salisburg, and Paris, where they have always been distinguished from the vulgar and mechanical traders, and exempted from divers taxes and impositions laid upon other companies.
The traffic of books was anciently very inconsiderable, in so much, that the book-merchants of England, France, and Spain, and other countries, were distinguished by the appellation of stationers, as having no shops, but only stalls and stands in the streets. During this state, the civil magistrates took little notice of the booksellers, leaving the government of them to the universities, to whom they were supposed more immediate retainers; who accordingly gave them laws and regulations, fixed prices on their books, examined their correctness, and punished them at discretion.
But when, by the invention of printing, books and booksellers began to multiply, it became a matter of more consequence, and the sovereigns took the direction of them into their own hands; giving them new statutes, appointing officers to fix prices, and granting licences, privileges, &c.