Steam power, however, completely altered the state of affairs.

When Koenig invented his steam press, he showed by the printing of Clarkson's 'Life of Penn'-- the first sheets ever printed with a cylindrical press--that books might be printed neatly, as well as cheaply, by the new machine.
Mr.Bensley continued the process, after Koenig left England; and in 1824, according to Johnson in his 'Typographia,' his son was "driving an extensive business." In the following year, 1825, Archibald Constable, of Edinburgh, propounded his plan for revolutionising the art of bookselling.

Instead of books being articles of luxury, he proposed to bring them into general consumption.

He would sell them, not by thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, "ay, by millions;" and he would accomplish this by the new methods of multiplication--by machine printing and by steam power.

Mr.Constable accordingly issued a library of excellent books; and, although he was ruined--not by this enterprise, but the other speculations into which he entered--he set the example which other enterprising minds were ready to follow.