The end of books c.1894

Originally posted at futureofthebook.org.au .

Either the books must go or they must swallow us up. I calculate that, take the whole world over, from eighty to one hundred thousand books appear every year; at an average of a thousand copies, this makes more than a hundred millions of books, the majority of which contain only the wildest extravagances or the most chimerical follies, and propagate only prejudice and error. Our social condition forces us to hear many stupid things every day. A few more or less do not amount to very great suffering in the end; but what happiness not to be obliged to read them, and to be able at last to close our eyes upon the annihilation of printed things!

The words belong to 'humorist' John Pool, as quoted by Octave Uzanne in the August 1894 edition of Scibner's Magazine.

I may yet quote more from this fabulous article that bemoans the death of writing and literature at the hands of the phonograph and the kinetograph.

Original is here if you want to treat yourself to some amazing 19th century writing and illustration.