REPRINTS OF FAMOUS BOOKS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 312, 26 September 1908, Page 14

REPRINTS OF FAMOUS BOOKS.

Mr. James' Milne has been collecting some details about*, tho sale of tho cheap reprints of famous bodks which now make a considerable part of the booksellers' trade, and in "The Monthly" he tells -us- that in two and a half, years four million volumes of the." Everyi'aan " library have ibeen sold, and that fqr twelve years .tlielompie " Shakespeare" has soli I,at the rate of a quarter of a million volumes .a.year. 'JVe clo .not know what a,xo tho 'sal !e$ of the boots which make up , Mr. Henry 1 Fxowdo's World's- (Classics, Messrs. Routledjj'.d's Ne.y Universal Library, Messrs. Caasell's People's Library, or other of such comely, aiQ.d useful ,volumes, but the total must,be immense. ~W,c are constrained' to ask (says the! "Manchester Guardian") whether the trade .can go ,on, or whether tho shelves of the ; wprld will presently be full, as now, it aj pears from the complaints on the Manchester Exchange, the godowns of- the East are 1 Jill of Manchester goods. These goods musti ultimately get into consumption and be wijrn put, but books aro not worn out so easily.. It is interesting to see that Palgrave's Treasury" is one of the best sellers jin three of these libraries, and that Tennysoli's and George Borrow's works come in for-, a- similar distinction. Tlje "Divine ' Comedy*?" and the "Canterbury Tales" have also ibeen bought with avidity, and 'the pulvfic has "quite jumped at" the reprint of Mnlayf's _ " Byzantine Empire." It. seems of good' significance that ono of Mr. Dent's btistiejira is an "Atjas of Classical Geography" which was compiled to meet the demi'md of an' intelligent interest in such books..as ; "Greece" and Gib-■ boil's,;" Decline .and: Pall." TFnJoss we may take ; an analogy from tho ton or so of leacl that is expended in bullets to kill each man and suppose tluit only .one of a cartload of books- hits its .mark, 'we should be gettin" on. / "