Although it was improper of Mr.Bludyer to sell his novel, and dine and drink of the profits before "smashing" it, there were probably not many reviewers who did not get rid of most of their books of this kind, if for no other reasons than that no house, short of a palace, would have held them all.

And, in the palmy days of circulating libraries, the price given by second-hand booksellers for novels made a very considerable addition to the reviewer's remuneration or guerdon.

But these booksellers would not pay, in proportion, for two or one volume books--alleging, what no doubt was true, that the libraries had a lower tariff for them.

Further, the short story, now so popular, was very _un_popular in those days: and library customers would refuse collections of them with something like indignation or disgust.
Indeed, there are reviewers living who may perhaps pride themselves on having done something to drive the dislike out and the liking in.
The circulating library itself, though not the creation of the novel, was very largely extended by it, and helped no doubt very largely to extend the circulation of the novel in turn.

Before it, to some extent, and long before so-called "public" or "free" libraries, books in general and novels in particular had been very largely diffused by clubs, "institutions," and other forms of co-operative individual enterprise, the bookplates of which will be found in many a copy of an old novel now.