deteriorated if it had slipped from the fingers of a lord-in-waiting. Such a fact introduces the element of sentiment, a powerful factor, and one of far-reaching influence; for the Quaker or Freemason who collects literature interesting to his society, or the local patriot who buys up the books printed in his native town, sets others upon collecting them too, and raises the value all round. Next to scarcity and great beauty, nothing, perhaps, imparts such stability to the worth of a book as to be addressed to a small but well-defined circle of readers. Books on chess and angling are familiar instances. They are not too numerous to dismay a collector, and every one differs from the rest in some feature sufficient to make it indispensable to a collector ambitious of completeness.

A certain description of books would excite lively interest if they could be identified with certainty, those which are not valuable now, but which are about to be. It may probably be considered that almost any book which can manage to exist for five hundred years will find itself augmented in value at the end of this period, but some classes will have proved much better investments than others. Two may be signalised with considerable confidence—illustrated books, which portray the fashions and humours of the age for posterity, and newspapers. Nothing grows in value like a newspaper; the sheets of to-day, which, perhaps, contain nothing of interest to any contemporary reader, will be priceless to the historian and antiquary of the centuries to come. They fructify in silence, and imperceptibly make their possessor rich. Their intellectual as well as their pecuniary value augments by lying still. Nothing so faithfully depicts an age for its successors; they are worth all the histories and all the novels. Their preservation—which involves their assemblage in one place for the sake of accessibility and of comparison with each other and with books—is a momentous trust, neglect of which would strike a heavy blow at historical, archæological, and sociological research, and inflict a grievous injury upon the ages to come.

R. GARNETT.

March 1898.

PREFACE

The subject of the prices of books is one which always exercises a certain fascination over the minds of book-lovers, although some have expressed their objection to any discussion of it, lest this should have the effect of enhancing prices.

In a single volume it is impossible to deal with so large a subject in any fulness of detail, and I have therefore endeavoured to give a general view, merely instancing a few cases in illustration of the whole, but making an exception in respect of two of the most interesting and high-priced classes of books in literature, namely, the productions of the press of Caxton, and the original editions of Shakespeare’s works.

It is necessary for the reader to bear two points in mind—

(1) That the value of money has changed during each century of our history to an extent not easy to calculate with precision, because the prices of all articles have not been equally affected. We can say generally that definite incomes a hundred years ago were equivalent in worth to twice their nominal amount at the present day, and that those of two hundred years ago would be worth about five times as much. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries money was worth ten or twelve times what it is now, but there is some difficulty in calculating correctly the rates respectively of necessaries and luxuries. This is a matter for experts, and cannot be more than alluded to here, as a warning to the reader that he must always remember that a pound or a shilling in previous centuries was of more value than it is to-day, and possessed a much greater purchasing power.

(2) That in dealing with prices we are interested with rare and specially valuable books. Ordinary standard books, even in good editions, were never cheaper than at present.

A writer of a work of this kind must feel grateful to predecessors, who have made it possible for him to gather satisfactory material for his purpose. Special gratitude is due to Thomas Frognall Dibdin, Hartwell Horne, and William Clarke (author of the Repertorium Bibliographicum), who were all thorough workers in this field. The labours of Dibdin have been unjustly depreciated by many modern writers. His works, besides being among the most beautiful books produced in Europe, are mines of bibliographical anecdote and useful literary information. Objections may be made by some to his descriptions, but he certainly greatly influenced the bibliomania of a former age, and made many sales famous which otherwise would have been forgotten except by the few.

There is a gap in the literature of our subject between authors at the beginning of the century and the modern writers, who largely obtain their information from French sources.

H. B. W.