Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

Book-Prices Current.

BOOK-PRICES CURRENT,

VOLUMES I. TO XII.

Being a Record of the Prices at which Books have been sold at Auction during the years 1887 to 1898, with the Titles and Descriptions of the Books in full, the Catalogue Numbers, and the Names of the Purchasers.

Some of the earlier volumes are out of print and others are at a premium. Reports will be made in answer to queries by the publisher.

Opinions of the Press.

"Book-Prices Current'-the Whitaker's Almanack of book-buyers and booksellers."-Illustrated London News.

"A very useful and admirably edited and printed publication,"-Morning Post. "To praise Book-Prices Current' is unnecessary; it has become indispensable to book collectors, and of vital interest to all who care for literature."-Globe.

"Brunet, indeed, so long the book-buyer's chief delight, must yield to 'Book-Prices Current.'"-Notes and Queries.

"It is beyond comparison the book-collector's cyclopædia. Its own earlier volumes, curiously enough, command very high prices."—Daily Chronicle.

"The practical utility to buyers and sellers of an authoritative annual work of reference like this requires no demonstration. .. The knowledge and skill displayed in this compilation merit cordial recognition." Standard.

"To all classes of bookmen, the issues of 'Book-Prices Current' may be fairly pronounced indispensable."-Literary World.

"It may be said without exaggeration, that the annual volumes of Mr. Slater's admirable compilation are indispensable to such as desire to follow with any closeness the record of sales and the movements of the secondhand book market."-Times.

"Valuable to booksellers, and still more so to book-buyers. . . . This useful work has long established its position, and must have saved many a collector a bad bargain."—Athenæum.

"The work supplies a finely printed record which will be valued, not by the bookseller merely, but by the collector and librarian."--Daily Telegraph. "The book collector's Bible."-Pall Mall Gazette.

"The record is extremely useful for buyers and collectors of books, and is a valuable index to current phases of book-collecting, and to fluctuations in the market."--Saturday Review.

For particulars of the

NEW INDEX TO THE FIRST TEN VOLUMES OF "BOOK-PRICES CURRENT"

[ocr errors]

APPLY TO THE PUBLISHER.

Book-Prices Current:

A

RECORD OF THE PRICES AT WHICH BOOKS

HAVE BEEN SOLD AT AUCTION,

FROM OCTOBER, 1898, TO JULY, 1899,

[merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small]

INTRODUCTION.

THE present volume of BOOK-PRICES CURRENT is, strictly speaking, the first that has accurately coincided with the natural course of the auction season, which, as is almost universally known, begins, as a rule, in the middle of October and ends at the end of July, or in the early days of August. It will be remembered that the previous volume was made to commence in December, 1897, a procedure absolutely necessary in order to introduce a new system. The present volume covers the sales held during the months of October, 1898, and July, 1899, inclusive, and I believe that it will be found that no sale or entry of any importance taking place between these dates has been omitted from its pages. Omissions there are, for it is neither desirable nor necessary to chronicle everything that is sold irrespective of condition, price, or interest; and then, again, some books have been purposely overlooked, for there is no satisfaction in repeating ad nauseam matters of information which have been dealt with in the same volume with a similar result on many previous occasions. BOOK-PRICES CURRENT is, and always has been, a work of selection specially constructed for quick and easy reference, and compiled in such a manner as to present as true and faithful a picture of the book-market for the time being as possible without wearisome repetition on the one hand or irregular omission on the other.

Anyone who takes the trouble to consult this and the preceding two or three volumes, and to carefully compare their contents with those of the earlier ones of the series, will, I think, arrive at the conclusion that a great change has come over the bookman's fancy during the last few years. He will observe that the tendency is now to specialize; that fewer large private libraries have come into

« ForrigeFortsett »