PREFATORY NOTES Each year it becomes increasingly difficult to supply anything in the form of Prefatory Notes, yet, although they must necessarily be written when the volume is completed, they really come as the overture comes to the presentation of the opera, and the book would seem bald without them. There is next to nothing to express except perhaps a pardonable complacence at the unbroken progression of success which has attended the publication. This success, I firmly believe, has been largely stimulated by the fact that BookAuction-Records is not merely a mechanical record of prices, but that, in addition to its usefulness, it includes matter of bookish and literary interest hitherto lacking in publications of its kind. It was almost at the end of volume that the idea presented itself that an article on the booksellers of Bath would be of interest. Why Bath in particular should have suggested itself as a subject I do not know, unless its position at the head of the alphabet of book-centres gave it an advantage, or the interest which I felt in an enterprising and quick-brained young bookseller of the city caused a recollection of the time-honoured colloquialism "Go to Bath." Anyhow, the article met with so much appreciation that in the present volume others have appeared, dealing systematically and in alphabetical order, with the libraries and booksellers of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge and Dublin. In volume 5 the interesting centres of Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, and Hereford will be dealt with, and the series will be continued until York becomes the terminus of the survey. In future all biographies will be placed under the subject, and not under the name of the author. It is of use and interest to know what various biographies have been published of any great man, and whereas it might not be known that Brown, Jones, and Robinson had each issued a biography of, say, Sir Joshua Reynolds, by referring to the heading "Reynolds" all of his biographies would at some time be recorded. It will, of course, be understood that in reprinting notes from the salecatalogues no attempt is made to correct grammatical errors, and that such errors must not be attributed either to myself, nor yet to carelessness on my part in passing them. They are necessarily reproduced verbatim from their source. Otherwise such a blot as "Thomas Gray, the Poet's copy" would find no place in the pages of B.A.R. 964925 One of the curiosities of editorial work is the determination of the compositor to re-edit it for you. Thus, you write something which is grammatically correct (for grammar is an exact science, and what you write is either right or wrong, and is not open to question), and some operative (I believe that is the proper designation), corrects what, in his ignorance, he believes to be your mistakes. He of course makes nonsense of what was before understandable by educated persons, and the latter are apt to place you on the plane of the compositor. Long-suffering in this respect makes one protestjust as the worm will at last turn. Petty annoyances are ever the keenest felt. If you are what is facetiously termed "ruined" you merely set to work to copy the lower animals, and rebuild your nest or place of refuge, but when some illiterate individual intrudes a comma which spoils the meaning of an entire sentence you fancy that the lowest indignity has been reached. It is of course understood that manuscripts find no legitimate place in B.A.R., but exception is occasionally made to this rule in the cases of those of unusual literary or historic interest, and especially when instances occur showing different texts than the published ones. A number of such cases appear in the fourth Part of the present volume, from the extremely-interesting library of Mr. Stuart M. Samuel, M.P., and from the Brontë sale. There are doubtless some among the subscribers who wonder at the tone and the subject of certain of the "Colloquialisms;" and do not understand the reasons for their inclusion in a bibliographical compilation. The subscribers referred to are more likely to be librarians than booksellers, and the explanation may be made to them that B.A.R. was established for the use and benefit of booksellers, that I have all my life been a bookseller myself, that "Colloquialisms" is a section of the publication which gives me an opportunity of chatting informally with those colleagues distance from whom makes personal conversation impossible with, and, further, that it is part of my creed that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and that if you work fourteen hours a day-which I do, mostly-you must have a safety-valve or the machine would explode. Hence "Colloquialisms" often gives an opportunity to blow off the steam, and, in short, being a gift and not reckoned in the subscription, those who do not care for need not read them. One thing is certain, viz, that the harder you work the more imperative is the need for an occasional bout of what thoughtless persons term Tomfoolery. It is extremely gratifying to find that clerical errors have almost reached the vanishing point. This year there have been discovered only four, and a list of them is supplied. F. K. BIRMINGHAM: ITS LIBRARIES AND ITS BOOKSELLERS BY ROBERT K. DENT (Chief Librarian of Aston Manor Public Library.) Unlike Bristol and Leicester and Manchester, Birmingham has no ancient library foundation to point to as evidence of the far-seeing wisdom of its early benefactors. The oldest library in the city was that in connection with King Edward's School, of which it is recorded by Calamy that the Rev. Thomas Hall (founder of the King's Norton's School Library) gave a number of books towards its formation, about the middle of the seventeenth century. In 1733 the Rev. W. Higgs, the first rector of St. Phi ip's Church (now the pro-cathedral) founded a library free to all clergymen of the Church of England in the town and neighbourhood,' which is now preserved in a room set apart to that purpose in the rectory in St. Philip's churchyard. It consists la gely of old books of divinity, but some attempt is made to keep up with the demands of the time, chiefly in this class of works. The only bock of note in the collection is a first edition of Εικων Βασιλική. There are many fine old works in the Library of King Edward's School, including two copies of Walton's famous Polyglot. The first public library was founded in 1779, as a subscription Library, by some of the foremost inhabitants of that period when Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Joseph Priestly and other Birmingham men were making the town famous for its scientific and literary coterie throughout England, as Baskerville had already made it famous throughout Europe by his magnificent editions' of the classics, his Cambridge Bible, and his beautiful editions of Milton, Addison, Congreve, and other English classics. The Lunar Society of Birmingham included among its members and occasional visitors many men famous in science, art and literature at that period, and it was chiefly to the members of this society that the Birmingham Old Library, as it is called, owed its foundation. By degrees this library (which, when it was founded in 1779, could stow away all its literary possessions in a small cupboard) grew to be one of the most important proprietory libraries in the provinces. It is now housed in a new Library Building in Margaret Street; erected from designs by J. A. Cossins, and comprises reading, conversation and smoking rooms, as well as a valuable library, the growth of a century and a quarter, containing many valuable works, county histories, the transactions of the learned societies, and other high-class works not usually found in subscription libraries. Almost immediately after the passing of the Free Libraries Act of 1850 an attempt was made to carry out its provisions in Birmingham, but although the leaders of thought in the city were ready to adopt the act, the inhabitants were not prepared for it as yet, and it was not until 1860 that the act was adopted, and for some years only a temporary library, in hired premises, was available for use by the people, and even that was somewhat remote from the centre of the town. But in September, 1865, a Central Lending Library was opened in the presence of a large number of visitors to the British Association, which held its meetings in Birmingham in that year for the third time. In October, 1866, a well-stocked Reference Library was opened in the same build ng by the late George Dawson, whose inaugural address on that occasion is one of the classics of the Free Library movement. One room in the new Central Free Library was devoted to the housing of a suitable Memorial Library of works by and relating to Shakespeare in every known edition. This room remained bare and empty until 1868, when it was fitted up in an appropriate manner, and the Shakespeare Memorial Library opened to s udents of his writings and of the literature gathered around them, from all parts of the world. Year by year both libraries were enriched by valuable donations: a rare collection of Cervantes literature, a collection of Birmingham books and pamphlets, as complete as effort could make it, the priceless Staunton Collection of Warwickshire Books and MSS. (including, besides many rare early printed books, the famous Manuscript Guild book of Knowle, the MS. Cartulary of Thelsford, and the priceless Manuscript of one of the old Coventry Mysteries, the Pageant of Sheremen and Taylours '); and choice books in every department of literature were purchas d as opportunity afforded. But, alas, the reckoning of all the treasures in this valuable library is distressful, for on the 11th January, 1879, a fire broke out (during the progress of work on the necessary enlargement of the Library building), and nearly all the contents of this great treasurehouse perished. The Guild Book of Knowle, and a few of the Shakespeare books were saved, but even in comparison of the total number rescued from the flames, the character of the salvage was most disappointing. Precious manuscripts and unique |