Book-Prices Current.

BOOK-PRICES CURRENT,

VOLUMES I. TO IX.

Being a Record of the Prices at which Books have been sold at Auction during the years 1887 to 1895, with the Titles and Descriptions of the Books in full, the Catalogue Numbers, and the Names of the Purchasers.

Some of the earlier volumes are out of print and others are at a premium. Reports will be made in answer to queries by the publisher.

Opinions of the Press.

"Book-Prices Current'-the Whitaker's Almanack of book-buyers and booksellers."-Illustrated London News. "A very useful and admirably edited and printed publication.”—Morning Post.

"To praise Book-Prices Current' is unnecessary; it has become indispensable to book collectors, and of vital interest to all who care for literature."-Globe.

"Brunet, indeed, so long the book-buyer's chief delight, must yield to 'Book-Prices Current." Notes and Queries.

Its own

"It is beyond comparison the book collector's cyclopædia. earlier volumes, curiously enough, command very high prices."-Daily Chronicle.

"The practical utility to buyers and sellers of an authoritative annual work of reference like this requires no demonstration. The knowledge and skill displayed in this compilation merit cordial recognition." Standard.

"To all classes of bookmen, the issues of 'Book-Prices Current' may be fairly pronounced indispensable."-Literary World.

"It may be said without exaggeration, that the annual volumes of Mr. Slater's admirable compilation are indispensable to such as desire to follow with any closeness the record of sales and the movements of the secondhand book market."-Times.

"Valuable to booksellers, and still more so to book-buyers. . . . This useful work has long established its position, and must have saved many a collector a bad bargain."-4 thenæum.

"The work supplies a finely printed record which will be valued, not by the bookseller merely, but by the collector and librarian."--Daily Telegraph. "The book collector's Bible."-Pall Mall Gazette.

"The record is extremely useful for buyers and collectors of books, and is a valuable index to current phases of book-collecting, and to fluctuations in the market."--Saturday Review.

For particulars of the

NEW INDEX ΤΟ THE FIRST TEN VOLUMES

OF BOOK-PRICES CURRENT

see the end of this volume.

Book-Prices Current:

A

RECORD OF THE PRICES AT WHICH BOOKS
HAVE BEEN SOLD AT AUCTION,

FROM DECEMBER, 1895, TO NOVEMBER, 1896.

INTRODUCTION.

To compare one season's Book Sales with another on the basis of the number of books sold and the total price realised for them is not always a very satisfactory method of procedure, because half a dozen volumes of exceptional interest and value might in themselves be sufficient to materially affect the result, and to render it more or less misleading so far as the pecuniary aspect of the case is concerned. Perhaps if a long series of years were brought into requisition the fact might be otherwise, since all statistics find their level in time; but BOOK-PRICES CURRENT, though by no means a new publication, is not as yet old enough to furnish the information that would necessarily be required before the Book Market could be placed on such a firm foundation that an average could be legitimately and safely struck. Still, it has been the custom for several years to give statistics, and I do so now as a slight contribution towards researches which may be made in after years, and which will, I feel persuaded, owe something, at any rate, to the information met with in what has not inaptly been termed "The Book-Collector's Bible." And these statistics, as I have been able to compile them, are based upon each and all the important sales of books that have ever been held in London and the provinces from 1893 to 1896 inclusive. Before the first-named year, it was not our practice either to calculate sums total or to strike averages, and the opportunity for doing so has now practically passed away.

At this point it would, I think, be well to give a short explanation of the principle upon which BOOK-PRICES CURRENT is, and always has been, compiled, so that subscribers and others may know how their interests are being cared for. At first sight it may appear the easiest thing to report a sale of books held by auction, particularly with the assistance of catalogues drawn up scientifically by experts, who have no equal in the world where