If early wood-engravings interest you, there are several works to which you may turn for guidance. Lippman's 'Wood Engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth Century,' of which an English edition was published in 1888, and Kristeller's 'Early Florentine Woodcuts' which appeared in 1897, treat of illustrated Italian books. Venetian books of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are dealt with by Prince d'Essling in his 'Bibliographie des Livres à Figures Vénitiens 1469-1525,' of which a new edition appeared in 1906. The works of Dutch and Belgian artists are dealt with by Sir W. M. Conway in 'The Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century.' This was published in 1884. M. Claudin's 'Histoire de l'Imprimerie en France' contains many illustrations of early Parisian woodcuts and illuminations, while Muther's 'Die Deutsche Bücherillustration der Gothik und Frührenaissance,' published in 1884, is also useful. For English engravers you will find Sir Sidney Colvin's 'Early Engraving and Engravers in England' (1905) useful, as well as Lewine's 'Bibliography of Eighteenth Century Art and Illustrated Books,' which appeared in 1898. A very delightful work on the eighteenth-century French engravers is M. H. Cohen's 'Guide de l'Amateur de Livres à Gravures du XVIIIe Siècle,' of which the fifth edition was published in 1886. Bewick's work has been dealt with by Mr. Austin Dobson in his 'Thomas Bewick and his Pupils,' octavo, 1884; and 'A Descriptive and Critical Catalogue of Works Illustrated by Thomas and John Bewick' was published by E. J. Selwyn in 1851. Mr. A. W. Pollard's 'Early Illustrated Books,' of which a new edition appeared in 1917, is of value from the historical point of view.
Place-Names and Dates.
Cotton's 'Typographical Gazetteer,' of which the second (and better) edition was printed at Oxford in 1831, is valuable for the identification of ancient Latin place-names. A second series was published in 1866. J. Hilton's 'Chronograms' (1882) and 'Chronograms Continued' (1885) are often of great assistance with regard to dates. In 1895 this indefatigable collector published a third volume, quarto, containing more than four thousand additional examples. For mere lists of works upon definite subjects one may consult Sargant and Whishaw's 'Guide-Book to Books' (1891) and 'The Best Books,' by W. S. Sonnenschein.
Pseudonyms.
For the identification of authors who wrote under a pseudonym you will find 'A Handbook of Fictitious Names,' by 'Olphar Hamst' (which was the pseudonym of Ralph Thomas) useful. It was published in 1868. But this has been partly superseded by Cushing's 'Initials and Pseudonyms,' large octavo, London, 1886; and the valuable work of Emil Weller, entitled 'Lexicon Pseudonymorum,' of which the second edition was published at Regensburg the same year, in octavo. This contains thousands of pseudonyms of all nations and all ages. Cushing also published 'A Dictionary of Revealed Authorship,' in two volumes, 1890. Then there is the valuable 'Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain,' by Halkett and Laing, which appeared in four octavo volumes between 1882 and 1888. Mr. F. Marchmont's 'Concise Handbook of Literature issued Anonymously under Pseudonyms or Initials,' appeared in 1896.
Antoine Barbier's 'Dictionnaire des Ouvrages Anonymes et Pseudonymes' was published first in four octavo volumes at Paris so long ago as 1806-8. A second edition was put forth in 1822-27. But between 1869 and 1879 a third edition, revised and enlarged, was incorporated with 'Les Supercheries Littéraires Dévoilées' of Joseph Marie Quérard (the second edition), the whole being edited by MM. Gustave Brunet and Olivier Barbier, and issued in seven large octavo volumes. The first three volumes (1869-70) appeared under the title of Quérard's work, the last four (1872-9) under that of Barbier. Quérard's work, which first appeared in four octavo volumes, 1847-52, is, as its title indicates, a dictionary of those books in French which have been published under fictitious names, are spurious, or have been wrongly ascribed. It is valuable for the identification of many fictitious memoirs and like books. Barbier's work deals with French anonymous and pseudonymous books. De Manne's 'Nouveau Dictionnaire des Ouvrages Anonymes et Pseudonymes,' octavo, Lyon, 1862, deals chiefly with contemporary French works. For pseudonymous books in Italian one must consult the work of Vincenzo Lancetti, which appeared at Milan, in octavo, 1836, as well as the 'Dizionario di Opere Anonime e Pseudonime di Scrittori Italiani,' by G. M. (Gaetano de' Conti Melzi), also published at Milan in three octavo volumes, 1848-59. A supplement, by G. Passano, was issued at Ancona in 1887.
Dibdin's rather sumptuously produced works are perhaps of more interest than bibliographical value, though his edition (vols. 1-4, 1810-19) of the 'Typographical Antiquities,' begun by Ames (1749), and augmented by Herbert (3 vols., 1785-90), is useful, in spite of the fact that it was never completed. For illustrations of the early printers' devices you must still have recourse to the 'Bibliographical Decameron,' three large octavo volumes, published in 1817. For the devices of French printers there is a more recent work entitled 'Marques Typographiques des Libraires et Imprimeurs de France, 1470-1600,' by M. Silvestre, which was printed in two octavo volumes at Paris, 1853-1867. It contains illustrations of more than 1300 devices. Every year witnesses the production of these indispensable aids to book-collecting, and the modern trend of such works is towards a constricted specialism. By this means it is possible to realise a minuteness and accuracy unobtainable in wider fields. The 'Bibliografia Aragonesa del Siglo XVI' of Señor Sanchez, a sumptuous work with illustrations of title-pages, colophons, etc., which was published in two folio volumes in 1913-14, is a striking example of this.
There are bibliographies of almost every class of books, and a great number dealing with the works of individual authors and printers of renown; but these are in the domain of the specialist. There are certain works, however, which will be of assistance to the collector in compiling a list of authorities upon his special subject. Dr. Julius Petzholdt's 'Bibliotheca Bibliographica' was published at Leipzig so long ago as 1866; Sabin's 'Bibliography of Bibliographies' appeared at New York in 1877; while Vallée's 'Bibliographie des Bibliographies' (though neither very accurate nor complete) was published at Paris, in large octavo, in 1883. A supplement to this last was issued in 1887. For the large number of bibliographical works which have issued from the press since that date you must consult Mr. W. P. Courtney's invaluable 'Register of National Bibliography,' in three volumes, 1905 to 1912; which, indeed, for modern purposes has superseded the above-mentioned works. In passing we would remark that the 'national' of its title-page is in the wider sense of the term.
And here a word of warning. Always make a point of entering the errata with a pencil in the margins of every reference-book that you acquire. Do this before you assign a place to the volume on the shelf; otherwise you may quote or condemn a passage or date which has been rendered wrongly owing to a clerical or printer's error, and has been put right in the errata.[56] Need we say that this practice should not necessarily be confined to works of reference? One may even find some amusement here. Was it not Scarron who wrote a poem, 'A Guillemette, chienne de ma sœur,' but quarrelling with his sister just as the volume was about to appear, put in the errata, 'For chienne de ma sœur read ma chienne de sœur'!
All these works will assuredly impart to the book-collector much knowledge of ancient books and their attributes, but he will still be at sea with regard to that most necessary part of their collection, namely, their commercial value. There is only one way in which this knowledge may be obtained, and that is by the study of catalogues. To arrive at a proper estimate of a book's value from the purely financial point of view, a close study of booksellers' catalogues and auction-sale prices through many years is necessary. The divergence in price of identical works is somewhat disturbing at first to the novice, and it is only after some considerable experience and the actual handling of books that one is enabled to arrive at a proper estimate of their worth. 'Continual use gives men a judgment of things comparatively, and they come to fix on what is most proper and easy, which no man, upon cursory view, would determine.'[57]