The Private Library. Arthur Lee Humphreys

      PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      WITH all the literature published on behalf of Free Libraries—institutions which, after all, are of doubtful good—no one so far has written a book to assist in making The Private Library combine practical useful qualities with decorative effect.

      For many years I have had opportunities of inspecting and reporting upon Collections of Books in numerous Country Houses, and I must say that the condition of books in the greater number of them is chaotic. A man will talk about all his possessions—his pictures, his objets d'art, his horses, his garden, and his bicycle, but rarely will he talk about his books; and if he does so, all his geese are swans, or just as often, all his swans are geese. There are servants in every house qualified to do everything except handle a book. There is no reason why the Library should not be just as much a place of amusement as the billiard-room, where the men are usually to be found. Books are much more amusing than billiards, and you may learn to play in jest or work in earnest with books just as you take to any other amusement. The whole truth is that at present books do not get a proper share of attention, and it is with the desire to remedy such a condition of things that I have printed this little volume, containing things that we do know, that we don't know, and that we ought to know about our books.

      A. L. H.

      187 Piccadilly, W.

      the

       Private Library.

       Table of Contents

What is a Good Edition?

       Table of Contents

      A good edition should be a complete edition, ungarbled and unabridged. If the author is a classic, the format of the copy chosen should in some way represent the style of the author. Gibbon, for instance, should be in large octavo or quarto, with print of a size to correspond. This is not always possible, for English editions of books often aim at mere cheapness, and of many great authors there exist no good editions. Thus there is no suitable edition of the classics printed in England, as there is and for long has been in France. A good edition is not necessarily an expensive edition, nor is it necessarily noble and generous in print and margin. The editions known as the 'Globe' editions of Pope and others are good editions because (1) They are complete; (2) Each one has been taken in hand and superintended by the most competent scholar and has notes sufficient but not pedantic; (3) Because they are well printed on paper of fair quality by printers who give wages liberally to careful press readers; (4) Because each work being a work of the first or classic order, it is bound in a simple and unaffected style, without meretricious gold or tawdry ornament. Now the 'Globe' editions are fitting in their place as types of right editions of the cheap kind. I will now take right editions of the more liberal and expensive kind. The 'Cambridge' Shakespeare, the last issue, each play in a separate volume, is right because (1) The print, paper, spacing, and simplicity of binding, are suited to the dignity of the work; (2) The edition has had brought to it fulness of knowledge and rightness of judgment; (3) Each volume is light to handle and easy to hold, and flexible in opening.

      But