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By Root 2184 0

with The Vicar of Wakefield and Tom Jones. As so often with the Irish trade, however, how exactly it operated is unclear. It lasted until the end of the century, but it left virtually no written traces. The company certainly hired a London agent, John Murray, hoping to monopolize the supply of new publications from England. Murray duly sent books to what he called the "Dublin Cartel" and declined to supply any other Dubliner. But his rates proved too high, and by late 1778 he was no longer the company's agent. Abandoning the plan of monopolizing the reprint industry it instead seems to have become something of a substitute guild, a guarantor of trade civility around its participants' copies. It held regular and festive dinners, especially on the anniversary of its founding, when its projection of a staunchly Irish identity was clear. Its members wore only Irish cloth-"the first regular Society that publickly associated to wear the manufactures of this kingdom"-and spearheaded nonimportation campaigns. The company additionally lent its authority to pricing schedules published by the bookbinders, and opposed papermakers' attempts to raise the price of paper.54 In such ways it began to play the part of a trade body politic. There is even tantalizing evidence that the company sought to create a regime of literary property. At least two surviving books bear title pages with the line "Entered with the Company of Booksellers." Nobody knows if the group ever really adopted a register, but such a line would mean little unless it did. And in 1793, calling for Ireland to pass a literary property law, the periodical Anthologia Hibernica described the company as the only bulwark against anarchy. "The invasion of copy right is in some measure prevented in Dublin," it conceded, "by the institution which is called the United Company of Booksellers." Yet the regime remained autonomous of any law, provided no protection either to nonmembers or to authors, and embraced only Dublin.55

The company sparked fierce resistance. Rival "pirates" denounced it as a "junto," and offered price cuts of 30-6o percent on their own titles in a bid to survive. What is striking, however, is how far their attacks rested on essentially similar national grounds to the company's defenses. The "pirate" printers and booksellers who fought back-principally Robert Bell (later an American revolutionary), Dillon Chamberlaine, James Hunter, James Potts, andJames Williams-justified their actions as en- couraging"the printing business in this kingdom, which some of the junto endeavour to suppress, by importation and contracting for books printed in London with their names." In other words, they accused Faulkner and his partners of carrying on the design of Bacon, Osborne, and Richardson by other means. Bell even reprinted Donaldson's Some thoughts on the state of literary property with a new preface in defense of Irish reprinting, apparently aiming it as much against the Dublin company as against London's oligarchs. And Bell's group issued a declaration of their own against "Some persons who chuse to distinguish themselves by the title of `The Company ofBooksellers."'The company, they declared, "having advertised that their property has been invaded," were using this charge to justify selling at below customary prices. Their price war was the real offense against trade fellowship, threatening Irish artisans for the sake of English imports. Bell et al. provided "one instance of their HONOUR" to bolster this claim. They described an edition of Fielding, of which they had published six volumes before the company announced that "their right was invaded." As Bell and his allies told it, they had agreed "in the most solemn manner" to refer the dispute to four "gentlemen of the trade." But when the referees decided against the company, only Faulkner and Ewing had been prepared to acquiesce. The others had proceeded to advertise a spoiler reprint of TomJones, "in order to deter them from ever daring to attempt printing any new or improved editions in this kingdom, especially while