Excursions in Libraria : being restrospective reviews and bibliographical notes / by G.H. Powell.

  • George Herbert Powell
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Excursions in Libraria : being restrospective reviews and bibliographical notes / by G.H. Powell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    way” books, and one or two such as are commonly called “rare,” and might not be found even in reputable libraries. But I have not, except in the first chapter, referred to any work except on the ground that it was (to persons debarred from purchasing a more modern or more expensive edition) at least worth having, for reasons more fully diagnosed in the text. In estimating the importance of form and typography as affecting the question whether the average individual is likely to read a book with pleasure or profit, or even to read it at all, and the considerable proportion of “ old books ” periodi- cally in danger of being slighted or forgotten by all but their actual custodians, there is sometimes a danger of confounding Jiiimmt (that is historical, or literary) and merely “ bookish ” interest. In regard to the former, I have spared the reader no reference to any original work likely to rouse his interest or curiosity, though I fear I cannot add—his envy or regret. Notes and references have thus, in spite of every desire to exclude vanities and repetitions, swelled to such a bulk, that the only excusable addition seemed an index, which is offered as an apology for the digressions of which several chapters are largely composed. The “we” of the retrospective reviewer, inextricably em- bedded in the one long bibliographical article which has already appeared in print, has been allowed to permeate the text with no further idea than that of associating the reader in an amicable “ voyage autour d’une bibliotheque choisie,” of which imagination and the proximity of Bloomsbury have slightly extended the bounds. Of the ornaments, devices, etc., with which my publishers