The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton.
§ 15. George Withers evidence
Booksellers seem to have got the upper hand of printers as well as of authors; and Christopher Barker, in his report of 1582, complains that booksellers were able to drive such good bargains that printers were mostly but small gainers and ofttimes losers. George Wither cannot be cited as an impartial witness, since his embittered controversy with the stationers, about the privilege which he obtained in 1623 ordering his Hymns and Songs of the Church to be appended to every copy of the Psalms in metre, no doubt surcharged his ink with gall. He himself says that he goes not about to lay a general imputation upon all stationers, but there is no reason to question the general truth of the statement which he makes in his Schollers Purgatory, when he says that
But the publisher of that day was not necessarily a mere profit seeker, and many of the larger works published in the period between the incorporation of the company and the establishment of the Commonwealth must have involved substantial risk, and are evidence of public spirit and some taste for letters in those who undertook their production.