BOOKS AND BOOKSELLERS.

WE join the two words with an "and" because we intend to consider books in this article in their relation to buyer and seller instead of to author. In these days, when printing has almost won the position of a fine art, or at least of a useful art into which the element of taste largely enters, we not only have a right to demand of the author that he give us something worth writing, but of the printer that, when written, it shall be put into a readable and attractive form. The printer who does this the most successfully is the one who best answers the expectations of the public, and ought to be encouraged. As early as the fifteenth century typographical beauty was considered an object to be sought, and the family of Aldus has gained lasting renown by their success in this field. An Aldine copy of Lucius Fiorus (Venetiis, 1521) in my possession exhibits a distinctness of typography and general excellence of appearance that for those infant days of the art are quite commendable. Of this class of printers, to whom we might allow the name of artists, we may instance the London Murray and a few of our own leading publishers.

But as we feel just now in a complaining mood, let us leave the excellences, and consider some of the defects in the modern process of book-making, - defects which in the productions of some publishers are only too prominent.

Illustrations are a valuable embellishment in many kinds of books, and in scientific works are an absolute necessity. But to illustrate a novel is in bad taste. In fiction, where the appeal is mainly to the imagination of the reader, he ought to be allowed to figure the characters and incidents in his own mind without having his ideas shocked by the sketches of some misnamed "artist," who attempts to depict scenes of which he seems not to have the faintest conception. To illustrate a book to help the understanding is a useful field for the pencil, but to illustrate for the sake or helping the imagination, or, what is worse, for the mere sake of advertising, is in most cases a miserable failure. I say in most cases, because a few novelists - Dickens, for example - have been so happy as to find artists, like Cruikshank, who can really help instead of hinder the story.

Another point in which many publishers fail, nay, to use a plain Anglo-Saxon word, cheat, is in the binding. It ought to be a point of honor among bookmakers to put in the market books that will stand at least one perusal without coming to pieces. But such is often not the case. One New York house, in particular, seems to do no more than throw the leaves of their books together. I picked up a book in the Library today which, though quite new, already showed signs of disintegration, and guessed at first glance from what house it emanated. On opening the cover, sure enough, the name of "Scribner" appeared on the title-page. And Scribner is not alone. A friend who bought a text-book of the Boston agents of another New York firm found, on taking it home, that several leaves were loose. He at once took it back to ask an exchange, but was greeted with a refusal, accompanied by the information that "they did n't warrant cloth-bound books."

Rich and luxurious bindings have been prized from early times, but to attempt cheap imitations by cloth covers emblazoned with all the colors of the rainbow, as is done especially in some recent editions of the poets, is enough to blackball them against admittance into the libraries of persons of taste. Better the old-fashioned, sober, hog-skin cover than the flash and flimsy bindings of some of our modern books.

We have spoken of publishers. Of the guild of middle-men or retailers we would like to say, from experience, that buyers will find it to their advantage to proceed with extreme caution in making bargains, for among these men "the tricks that are vain" are as many and various as those of our friend in the poem.

Taking any few of them into comparison, their scales of prices are absurdly varied. Of two recent catalogues of firms with which our students have dealings, the prices of volumes of "Bohn's Library" are just one third higher in one than the other, though the lower price named is by no means cheap.

"Marking down" sets of books from a very high to what is termed a low figure is a popular way of drawing in those who do not see that the man of straw was set up simply for the purpose of knocking him over again.

Buying up all the books of a kind within reach and then selling them at an advanced price, a trick with which many of us are unpleasantly familiar, is a very neat plan for increasing the profits at first, but, we venture to suggest, may not pay in the long run.

But here let our indictment rest. Completeness might require us to make it longer, but brevity demands that we make haste to cut it short.

C. H. B.