Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/201

 convincingly to the writer's breadth of knowledge, his catholic sympathy, and his insight into the moral content of literature. The venture was a signal success. More than six and a quarter million volumes have been sold, the average being 30,000 copies per title, and though the price has had to be substantially raised, selected volumes of the series are still selling. At the end of 1886 a complimentary copy of all the volumes published up to that time was sent to John Bright, who made the following acknowledgment:

" "2nd January, 1887.

,—Your wonderful Library for the year just ended has reached me. I thank you for it, and for the service you are rendering to the education of our people by giving them so much that is of inestimable value for a sum of money so trifling in amount. I hope your efforts may meet with a great and growing success.—I am, very truly yours, "."

Many readers will recall Mr. Arnold Bennett's reference to the National Library in "Clayhanger." He describes Edwin Clayhanger as reading a volume of a new series of reprints" which had considerably excited the bookselling and book-reading world"; while in "Mental Efficiency," expressing his gratitude "to the devisers of cheap and handy editions," he writes:

"The first book I ever bought was the first volume of the first modern series of presentable and really cheap reprints, named, Macaulay's 'Warren Hastings,' in Cassell's National Library. That foundation-stone of my library has unfortunately disappeared, but another volume of the same series, F. T. Palgrave's 'Visions of England' (an otherwise scarce book), still remains to me through the vicissitudes of seventeen years."

For more than thirty years before his death Henry Morley had kept before his mind the idea of a systematic History of English Literature, and it was in reference to this that he entitled his volume for students "A First