Term catalogue
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Term Catalogues were catalogues printed before the book fairs to give an overview of the upcoming production. At the fairs publishers would refer to them to see what production their colleagues had to offer. One bought books published by colleagues or changed books with them to widen the selection one could sell oneself.
Famous were the German term catalogues (Messkataloge) which gave an overview of the central European book production for the Frankfurt and Leipzig fairs three times a year. Unlike Great Britain or France Germany had no central publishing city, the fairs were necessary to reach the common market.
The English term catalogues published by Edward Arber from the booksellers' quarterly lists - The Term Catalogues, 1668-1709 A.D., 3 vol. (1903-06) - give by contrast only a small selection of the total production of English 17th and 18th century titles.
The following table shows the proportion of books published in different fields as listed in the last issue of the term catalogues for Easter 1711 - under the original headings. London's book trade - the split between new and old titles shows this - had become a trade of 'new' books involved in ongoing controversies. The fields of "Divinity" and "History and Politikcs" dominated the market, with the term "history" referring to all kinds of books reporting on events whether ancient or new, true or fictitious.
| [DIVINITY.] | 71 | 37% | ||
| REPRINTED. | 24 | 13% | ||
| HISTORY AND POLITICKS. | 35 | 18% | 56% | |
| REPRINTED. | 3 | 2% | 70% | |
| MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES. | 11 | 6% | ||
| REPRINTED. | 4 | 2% | ||
| PHYSICAL AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. | 4 | 2% | ||
| REPRINTED. | 5 | 3% | ||
| PHILOLOGY. | 4 | 2% | ||
| REPRINTED. | 7 | 4% | ||
| POETRY. | 3 | 2% | ||
| REPRINTED. | 2 | 1% | ||
| MISCELLANIES. | 18 | 9% | ||
| ADVERTISEMENT. | (1) | |||
| 191 | 100% |
