Overview of the chronological demographics of astrology books in my collection

Overview of the chronological demographics of astrology books in my collection, 1550s-2000s
– 23 December 2012

Recently I have been undertaking the laborious but necessary process of refining my book catalogue by separating the journals from the books and ordering the journals by title within each decade instead of by editor within each year. Having reached up to and including the year 2009 in this process, I have been in a position to undertake a proper count by year of books and pamphlets excluding journal issues, almanacs and other periodicals for all years up to 2009, which has led me to compile the following figures. Those up to and including the 1890s are pooled by decade. The 1890s are split into two groups of five years. All years from 1900 onwards are represented individually.

In addition to excluding journals and almanacs, these figures exclude all reprints of books up to the year 1950 that were listed in my catalogue under the original year of publication, and all books that could not be clearly dated to a particular year either from the evidence within the book itself or from library records. Further, I have counted all sets of 12 separate sun sign books and pamphlets written by a single author as a single item; and that goes for sets that I have only partly collected too. Otherwise where such sets occurred, figures would have been artificially swollen. But other publications that appeared in separate volumes have been credited once for each volume.

I feel that the figures speak for themselves with regard to the general demographics of the history of astrological publishing up to and including 2009. From 2010, limited means and conscious delaying in purchases has distorted the figures for every year severely downwards, and these years are therefore not directly comparable and will have to be excluded until such time as I’ve been able to afford to fill in the gaps.

The figures for the 16th and 17th centuries (1550s-1690s) are kept low in substantial measure by the sheer expense involved in purchasing original editions from these times. They massively under-represent the true scale of astrological publishing during that period, but nonetheless show some interesting trends, with a pronounced peak in the 1650s. To a lesser extent, the 18th and 19th centuries and very early years of the 20th are relatively under-represented because of the sheer scarcity and in some cases corresponding expense of some books.

I have not made any attempt to exclude from the figures occult works that are not strictly astrological but are written by famous early astrologers: notably the various Raphaels and Sepharial account for several such. Since their work as a whole is so much an important part of astrological history, it deserves to be counted. Also, I have made no distinction between newly written guides to astrology, and new editions of ancient source texts, nor between source texts in themselves and history books of relevance to astrology and astrologers. The figures are thus a composite of all astrologically relevant publications that have made it into this collection, sorted by year of printing.

Books that have been custom-bound by owners into single volumes from parts that were originally published separately have been counted on the basis of how they were originally published. Thus, if a volume in the collection actually contains several volumes it is counted as several volumes accordingly.

There might be something of an upward distortion in the mid-2000s as a result of my purchase of numerous new Indian astrology books at this time, as well as in the late 2000s as a result of my purchase of numerous new German astrology books at this time. If I were to factor these out, then the true downward trend in astrological publishing since the late 1990s would be more pronounced than it appears here.

1550s: 4
1560s: 1
1570s: 0
1580s: 3
1590s: 3
1600s: 2
1610s: 0
1620s: 2
1630s: 0
1640s: 3
1650s: 10
1660s: 4
1670s: 6
1680s: 5
1690s: 3
1700s: 1
1710s: 0
1720s: 2
1730s: 0
1740s: 2
1750s: 1
1760s: 1
1770s: 0
1780s: 4
1790s: 8
1800s: 1
1810s: 5
1820s: 8
1830s: 8
1840s: 11
1850s: 12
1860s: 13
1870s: 14
1880s: 26
1890-4: 17
1895-9: 39
1900: 9
1901: 14
1902: 9
1903: 14
1904: 14
1905: 8
1906: 12
1907: 12
1908: 11
1909: 18
1910: 19
1911: 23
1912: 22
1913: 19
1914: 20
1915: 19
1916: 11
1917: 12
1918: 10
1919: 13
1920: 19
1921: 18
1922: 16
1923: 20
1924: 14
1925: 23
1926: 26
1927: 36
1928: 36
1929: 34
1930: 31
1931: 41
1932: 36
1933: 36
1934: 28
1935: 34
1936: 39
1937: 38
1938: 27
1939: 31
1940: 22
1941: 26
1942: 31
1943: 22
1944: 7
1945: 9
1946: 23
1947: 32
1948: 12
1949: 18
1950: 28
1951: 14
1952: 27
1953: 25
1954: 19
1955: 18
1956: 17
1957: 9
1958: 15
1959: 24
1960: 24
1961: 17
1962: 32
1963: 19
1964: 19
1965: 22
1966: 18
1967: 19
1968: 29
1969: 43
1970: 57
1971: 58
1972: 58
1973: 54
1974: 79
1975: 74
1976: 77
1977: 86
1978: 82
1979: 56
1980: 74
1981: 61
1982: 66
1983: 71
1984: 73
1985: 56
1986: 73
1987: 78
1988: 85
1989: 64
1990: 88
1991: 57
1992: 78
1993: 79
1994: 104
1995: 103
1996: 123
1997: 121
1998: 107
1999: 114
2000: 89
2001: 84
2002: 103
2003: 113
2004: 115
2005: 114
2006: 96
2007: 84
2008: 75
2009: 84

SUBTOTAL: 5049

(The above is the total of individual volumes printed from the 1550s to the 2000s inclusive, not counting any of the following:
Duplicate copies of the same edition;
Reprints from 1950 or later of works first published before 1950;
Undated books for which no definitive date could be established in library records;
C. C. Zain’s “Brotherhood of Light” volumes of lessons as clothbound volumes that were themselves undated compilations of earlier originals;
Journals and magazines;
Almanacs and yearbooks;
Subsequent volumes after the first in sets of zodiac sign or sun sign guides in 12 separate pamphlets or books by a single author)