Who could afford books in the late early-modern period? We explore how prices related to the demand for books in eighteenth-century Britain by analysing extensive bibliographic and socio-economic data based on Bayesian statistics and machine learning. Our results quantify in financial terms the difficulty of buying print products faced by most British households in the eighteenth century, and how this related to the varying levels of supply across price segments. We found no evidence of the well known claim that legislation would have led to lower prices. The inadequate supply and high cost of books make it likely that only higher-income households bought them regularly from the primary market.

中文翻译：

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印刷文化与经济约束：十八世纪英国图书价格的定量分析


在近代早期后期谁买得起书？我们基于贝叶斯统计和机器学习分析大量书目和社会经济数据，探讨价格与十八世纪英国图书需求的关系。我们的研究结果从财务角度量化了 18 世纪大多数英国家庭购买印刷品所面临的困难，以及这与不同价格段的不同供应水平之间的关系。我们没有发现任何证据证明众所周知的立法会导致价格下降的说法。书籍供应不足且成本高昂，很可能只有高收入家庭才会定期从一级市场购买书籍。