Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/270

 2^8 The Library. books they have printed, enriched with their autograph inscriptions, and sometimes with charming verses, would become interesting to the literary collector. But the books they have presented have, in most instances, an interest of another kind, and few of them can now be obtained either for love or money. Thus, besides the other privately printed books, Mr. Bridges has made Mr. Gosse his debtor by the gift of the Carmen Elegiacuns, which he wrote while a student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital; from Mr. Henley he has received the first editions, printed in the hopes of attracting an enterprising manager, of the plays written in collaboration with Mr. Stevenson, from Mr. Lang, the trial versions of his Theocritus, and of the sixth book of the Odyssey, made ere yet the help of Mr. Butcher had been secured for the better rendering of the Greek. Mr. Stevenson's gifts are too numerous to be recorded in full, for here is the first essay of his pen, The Pentland Rising, printed in 1866; The Charity Bazaar, a delightful squib, covering four pages of ribbed quarto paper; all the Davos Platz books; and one single sheet, containing, "A Martial Elegy for some lead soldiers," at the foot of which is written: The verse is mine, the printing done by Sam, The Boss of printing Bosses; This copy, of the first edition last, I testify is Gosse's, the " Sam " of the first line being Mr. S. L. Osbourne, Mr. Stevenson's son-in-law, and collaborator in The Wrong Box and The Wrecker. Among other desirable sets we may single out for special mention the little collec- tion of Edward Fitzgerald's works, the Euphraner of 1851; Polonius of '52; the Salaman and Absdl of '56; and The Two Generals [1868?], in addition to the translations of Calderon, Omar Khayyam, and the Agamemnon and QLdipus, which are comparatively common. Books printed by Mr. Daniel at Oxford, and the publications of the Grolier Club of New York are among Mr. Gosse's newer treasures. An edition of the Poems of J. R. Lowell deserves mention for its imprint, " C. E. Mudie, 28, Upper King Street, 1844." It represents Mr. Mudie's single essay as a publisher before he turned his attention to starting the circu- lating library in which his interests and those of the trade with which he here experimented, are by no means identical. Another interesting little book is the Catalogue of the exhibition of the pictures of Mr. Ford Madox Brown in 1865, the first of the "one man" exhibitions which have since become so popular. But of such pleasant rarities Mr. Gosse possesses many more than we have space to chronicle. Specimens of Royal, Fine and Historical Bookbinding, selected from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle. 152 plates, printed in facsimile by W. Griggs. With an introduction and notes by R. R. Holmes, F.S.A., Librarian to the Queen. London: W. Griggs and Sons, Limited, 1893. Fol. Price ^"5 53. We must apologize to our readers for the accident by which we have hitherto delayed noticing this handsome book, which is magnificent enough to deserve a better treatment. In the matter of the cover, indeed, and of the decoration of the margins of the preliminary leaves, it may be questioned whether magnificence is not carried rather too far. The designs for these decorations are taken from Persian manuscripts of the Shah Nameh, now at Windsor Castle, and though very splendid in them-