Regency Reader Question
What was the price of a book in the regency period?
| Source of Question | Research |
| Additional comments | I have been researching and have only been able to come up with that they were expensive, but no one has mentioned costs. |
Thanks for the excellent question, BritGirl!
I have snipped a couple of ads from various years to show prices:
These are from 1817:
From 1807:
The s in these cases is shillings and the d stands for pence. I found a historic converter here (https://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=27¤cy=shillings&fromYear=1817) but I am not sure of its date or the basis for the data…so I would think its loosely accurate.
Using this, books seemed to range between $30 to several hundred or 25 GBP to 200 GBP. Variation appears to depend on size, number of illustrations, and number of volumes.
Here is a bit of debate about printing and publishing from 1817 that speaks a bit to price:
Hope that helps answer your inquiry!
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