MITCHELL S. BUCK
Author of “Syrinx,” “Ephemera,” “The Songs of Phryne,”
Translator of “Lucian’s Dialogues of the Hetaerai,” etc.
Philadelphia NICHOLAS L. BROWN MCMXVIII
Copyright, 1918
By Nicholas L. Brown
Printed July 1918
FOREWORD
The following chapters contain suggestions partly gathered from the experience of others and partly evolved for myself in caring for my own books. Although many “books about books” have already been written, there is still, I think, a place for this one. I have designed it especially for the bibliophile who enjoys “fussing” over his books and who receives, in seeing them in good condition and repair through his own efforts, an echo of the pleasure he receives from reading them.
In translating from Bonnardot, I have taken the liberty of abridging or paraphrasing, at times, the chapters which I have included here, not only to confine the subjects a little more closely but also to present his essential suggestions as concisely as possible. His book, copies of which are very scarce, was first issued in an edition of four hundred copies in 1846 and re-issued, with revisions, in 1858. It has not since been reprinted nor, so far as I have been able to learn, has it been translated into English, either wholly or in part.