Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/315

 ii s. v. MAR. so, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES:

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The English Catalogue of Books for 1911. (Samp-

son Low & Co.)

THIS is the seventy -fifth year of issue of 'The English Catalogue,' a work of reference invaluable to all associated with the world of books. If any one of our readers is the happy possessor of the previous seventy-four volumes, we heartily con- gratulate him. We have here in one alphabet the most sensible plan of cataloguing a complete list of the books published during the past year, and this shows the highest number ever recorded in the United Kingdom for a single year, reaching the huge total of 10,914, an increase of 110 on 1910. How public excitement interferes with publishing is seen during last year in June, the Coronation month, when only 673 books were issued. However, the depression was but tem- porary. for in October the number mounted "up to 1,527 (a record).

The statistics for the past eleven years, includ- ing 1911, not only bear witness to a remarkable increase in the number of works published, but also make it clear that this increase is evenly distributed over all classes of literature. This is proved by the classified table adopted by the International Congress of Librarians at Brussels in 1910.

What surprises us is the fact that the number of works on music should be so small during last year ; only 52 were published, and these included two new editions. No other subject gives so low a figure. The highest, naturally, is that for fiction, with 2,215 entries, including 933 new editions. The next, numerically, is religion 930 entries, including 128 new editions ; next comes sociology, proving how rapidly interest in this subject has grown 725 entries, new editions 55. Poetry and the drama come next, followed by science 650 entries, 108 new edi- tions. Technology shows up well, with 525 entries. The increase in the annual total number of books issued during ten years from 1901 is marvellous : in that year the total was 6,044, and in 1910 10,804.

The value of the volume is further enhanced by an Appendix containing lists of the publica- tions of Learned Societies and Printing Clubs. There is also a Directory of Publishers. Every praise is due to Mr. James Douglas Stewart for the time and labour he has bestowed in making the contents so complete.

Index to the Contents of the Cole Manuscripts in the British Museum. By George J. Gray. With a Portrait of Cole. (Cambridge, Bowes & Bowes. )

EVERYBODY interested in the history of Cam- bridgeshire and of Cambridge Colleges will be glad to have in a handy form this Index to the enormous mass of manuscript collections made by Cole, and left, a_fter much hesitation, to the British Museum. Sir Frederic Madden's very full Catalogue is difficult to obtain in the ordinary way, leaving out of account the fact that it was printed in the now despised form of a folio ; and though the manuscript ' Subject Catalogue ' in the Museum Library itself is useful and almost exhaustive, it can only be consulted'on the spot.

Mr. Gray has therefore done good service in reprinting the copy of the list of contents made for Mr. G. A. Matthew some years ago, and now in the Cambridge University Library, which seems, as far as we have checked it, to be an accurate one. Unfortunately, he does not appear to have collated it with Sir F. Madden's printed Index, and many entries there are not to be found in this list e.g., the correspondence of Sir John Hinde Cotton with Cole does not appear under either name. Mr. Matthew's copyist seems to have reserved to himself an unsuspected liberty of omission. The book is well arranged and printed.

WE have received Part I. of A Guide to Books- on Ireland, edited by Stephen J. Brown, S.J. (Dublin, Hodges, Figgis & Co. ; London, Long- mans). This deals with prose literature, poetry, music, and plays ; Part II. will contain bio- graphy and ecclesiastical works; and Part III. miscellaneous sections. The material for the last two parts has already been collected to a great extent, but their publication has been, delayed owing to the editor's lack of sufficient leisure ; moreover, the reception accorded to the present volume will determine what is done as to further publication. We heartily hope that the reception may be such as to encourage the editor to proceed with his plan. For, as he reminds us in his Preface, Ireland does little of her own publishing, and the English houses from which Irish books are issued do not trouble to keep them in print. The Irish reading public is small, and thus the treasures of a literature, which is precious as possessing qualities no other litera- ture possesses, tend to become lost and forgotten. Still, a few names have by this time penetrated beyond the circle of lovers of Ireland and lovers of poetry, and have begun to arouse interest in that general public for whom this work of " vul-. garization " is intended. We think no better way could have been found to inform and stimu- late this incipient interest than the way taken by the editor of this bibliography. So far as the Irish books of any importance are concerned, his lists are exhaustive. To the necessary details of title, author, date, mimber of pages, publisher, and price is added, in the great majority of instances, a short account of the work in question intentionally rather descriptive than critical, yet not without useful discrimination.

Mr. Hollo way has made the list of Irish plays, which fills about half the volume. The earliest is ' The Pride of Life,' a morality performed at Holy Trinity Church, Dublin, about the middle of the sixteenth century. The list includes any plays into which Irish characters are intro- duced e.q., ' King Henry V.,' ' Old Fortunatus,' ' The White Devil,' and so on. The twentieth- century plays alone equal in number the total of the rest ; and Mr. Holloway prefaces them by a brief discussion of the characteristics of the new Celtic drama and of the criticism it has evoked both in Ireland and America. Under the heads of Poetry and Prose alike occur names all too little known to the general reader, and that to his loss.

We hope that every public library will add this volume to its open reference shelves, and that many a lover of books will consult it as an aid to the building up of a representative library.