CHAPTER VII.

RULES TO FOLLOW.

ERY few of the books offered for sale, unless it be in the better-class shops, are in all

respects perfect. Very often a plate will be missing, and the deficiency is perhaps not detected until the work comes to be compared with another copy known to be in the condition in which it left the publisher's hands. The want of a frontispiece, or even a title-page, is also a very usual blemish, for a number of people, at whose head was a certain depredating bookseller named John Bagford, used at one time to collect these, to the detriment of every volume they came across. Bagford's collection of title-pages, now in the British Museum, fills a large number of folios, constituting a monument to misguided energy which it would perhaps be impossible to match elsewhere. Another defect, and the commonest of all, must be placed to the debit of a long

generation of ignorant or careless binders, who were accustomed to shave the edges of every book entrusted to them for re-binding.

Any book thus treated falls in value on the instant, and the extent of the depreciation will depend upon the quantum of injury inflicted upon it. Occasionally we find that the binder's shears have cropped the very headlines, at other times the damage is not so great.

Some books are so excessively rare that copies are eagerly competed for regardless of the fact that they are badly "cropped," but such instances as these are the exceptions which prove the first of the rules it is necessary to learn, viz., that it is better on the whole to purchase an imperfect book than one which has been cut down by the binder. The reason of this is obvious. A missing plate, frontispiece, title-page, or leaf may be replaced, and often at a small cost, from another book, itself perhaps imperfect in other respects; but no power on earth can add a single millimètre to the edge of a sheet of paper which has been cut.

Of course, when books are offered for sale at a very low price, defects, whether of mutilation or imperfection, cannot be complained of, but when anything like the full value is asked, the greatest care should be exercised in order to see that no imperfections exist. In the vast

majority of cases it is better to reject an imperfect book altogether than to take it at a slight reduction. As to a cropped work, it is well to remember that the normal value will have fallen from 15 per cent. to 75 per cent., or perhaps more, according to the extent of the injury.

Where compelled to guess at an edition or value, it must be remembered that where a work is reprinted away from its country of origin, it is seldom of importance. In cases where this rule does not hold good, it will generally be found that any value the work may have depends for its existence on the illustrations; or in very rare instances, on the excellent quality or rarity of the printing; or in rarer cases still, on the extraordinary reputation of the author, which carries its impress with it even abroad. A copy of any of Byron's works, for example, to be of value, must have been printed in England. No Scotch or Irish edition can be of any importance for itself alone. Also, French books reprinted in England, or vice versa, can hardly be of any value; and the principle extends to every kind of book which, in common parlance, is a stranger to the country in which it sees the light. Some of the classical authors have been translated in this country, as Dryden translated Virgil, and Chapman, Homer; but in these cases the import

ance of the translation, combined with the fact that there were no original editions of the authors in question except in manuscript, is instrumental in creating an interest of a dual nature, one part of which centres in the classic, the other in the translation. In other words, the books must be regarded as entirely distinct, and each judged on its merits.

A third rule, and one which can be traced to a very recent origin, though the grounds upon which it is based, are perhaps not quite so apparent as they might be, has reference to the binding up of parts. It is well known that many of the works of Dickens, Thackeray, Lever, and other modern novelists, were originally issued in parts, and the rule in these cases is that to bind is to spoil. The parts should be preserved in a dropcase, and intact as they were issued; for if bound up, the value will fall considerably. As an instance, perhaps no better example could be given than Dickins's "Pickwick Papers," first published, it will be remembered, in 1837. A good set of the original parts cannot be got, even by auction, for much less than £9 or £10; whereas a bound uncut copy must be a very good one indeed to realise half the smaller sum. At the Mackenzie Sale held in March, 1889, a bound copy of the Pickwick Papers sold for no less than £22. The circumstances were highly excep

tional, and yet must be present to a greater or less extent in every case where it is desired that nothing shall be lost by the act of binding. The book contained the two Buss plates, with the original wrappers and all the advertisements, specimens, &c., bound up separately in morocco extra by Rivière, one of the best binders of the age, and was, of course, absolutely uncut. In this, as in every other case, the binder's shears would have reduced the value to almost nothing.

As a corollary to this rule, the question of rebinding under any circumstances is one that frequently assumes considerable prominence. There is no doubt that it is advisable to retain the original covers as long as they will hold together; but if the work is of any value and must be rebound, only the best workmen should be employed for the purpose. This, though expensive, is essential. If expense is an object, it will be better to have the binding repaired, which in the vast majority of cases can easily be done.

In judging the value of any book, remember that intrinsic quality is the real basis of value, and that a bad or unknown author cannot have produced other than an unimportant book. The author may be known quâ author, or in any other capacity, just as the Earl of Rochester, whose poems in the original are SO scarce and