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Even in the early 19th century hard back books were very expensive. If you worked down the pit, or were a farm labourer, you couldn't afford a new one, or even a second hand one. Hence the arrival of public libraries in the UK and elsewhere. Mass production of books didn't really come until there was a very large population who were literate and production expanded accordingly, with machine binding and so on. And it really exploded with mechanical typesetting.
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