Don’t Blame Amazon For Dumbing Down Literature: Stephen L. Carter

Book sales fell 7.5 percent in the first two months of 2015 from the same period last year, led by a plummet of 15.5 percent in that same heretofore vibrant children’s and young adult market: Bloomberg

You might never have heard of Charles Edward Mudie, but in the middle of the 19th century he was the largest buyer of books in the world. Mudie, a British publisher and proprietor of a hugely successful for-profit lending library, was so powerful that his fellow publishers hesitated to sign writers whose works he refused to carry. He was feared by working novelists, many of whom rewrote portions of their books to avoid his censure.