BOOK-PRICES CURRENT, VOLUMES I. TO X. Being a Record of the Prices at which Books have been sold at Auction during the years 1887 to 1896, 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 Pest. "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' fairly pronounced indispensable."-Literary World. may be "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" see the end of this volume. Book-Prices Current: A RECORD OF THE PRICES AT WHICH BOOKS HAVE BEEN SOLD AT AUCTION, FROM DECEMBER, 1896, TO NOVEMBER, 1897. IT has been my custom during the last few years to give statistics in tabular form of the books sold by auction in England, and of the amounts realised for them, and thus to arrive at some sort of a conclusion with regard to the state of the Book Market. I am aware that no contemporary average can be implicitly relied on, that some exceptionally important Library may upset all narrow calculations and completely nullify any attempt to draw a conclusion from the figures of any single year. In dealing with books, we must not, of course, forget that fluctuations are incessant, and depend, moreover, in addition to questions of demand or fashion, upon condition, binding, and many other circumstances. The object in giving statistics is, consequently, not to pledge the Book Sales of any given year, but to accumulate information covering a number of years, and in this way to establish a position which will become more and more accurate as time advances. Just as the death-rate for a week or month may rise to colossal proportions, owing to the existence of some dreadful scourge, or fall in a corresponding degree by reason of exceptionally favourable climatic conditions, so statistics of every kind are liable to erratic inroads. In the end, however, a balance is always found; for exceptional figures distributed over a long period of time must necessarily lose more and more of their influence, till at last they reach the average point, and so fall into line. It will be remembered that the following table was given in the introduction to last year's volume: These figures show an approximate average of £1 6s. 7d. per lot |