There are two valuable bibliographies upon this subject, both necessarily large and important works. They are Sabin's 'Dictionary of Books relating to America,' in nineteen octavo volumes published at New York from 1868 to 1891, which, however, comprises only the headings from A to Simms: and Evans' 'American Bibliography,' privately printed in eight quarto volumes at Chicago, 1903 to 1914. Harrisse's 'Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima' (New York, 1866) with its supplement (Paris, 1872) is a bibliography of the rarest books concerning America that appeared between 1492 and 1551. Mr. W. H. Miner's 'The American Indians, North of Mexico,' published by the Cambridge University Press in 1917, contains a bibliography of works on the aboriginals.
Architecture.
4. Works upon Architecture are, de natura, for the greater part 'art books,' and comprise not only such large works as Furttenbach's massive tomes and the works of Britton and Billing, but the many beautifully illustrated books published by Ackermann at the beginning of last century. Most of them, English and foreign, are books of considerable value, for the plates were often produced by the great masters of engraving, and they readily command high prices whenever they appear in the market. But there is a large and increasing number of smaller works which deal with buildings and designs, as well as those books concerning buildings of an historical interest. There does not seem to be any monumental bibliography of architectural books, but you will find useful lists in Mr. W. P. Courtney's volumes.
The older books upon this subject are necessarily scarce: such as Alberti's 'Libri de Re Ædificatoria Decem,' which appeared first at Florence in 1485. This work, however, was reprinted at Paris in 1512, and you may have a copy of it for a couple of pounds, though the first French translation 'L'Architecture et Art de bien bastir, trad. par deffunct Jan Martin,' folio, Paris, 1553, with fine large woodcuts, will cost you four times as much. It is a fine book, and contains a portrait of the author as well as a three-page epitaph by Ronsard on the deffunct Jan Martin.
Bibles.
6. The collection of Bibles is perhaps one of the commonest subjects to engage the attention of specialists. There is a numerous bibliography, ranging from Anthony Johnson's little tract 'An Historical Account of the English Translations of the Bible,' printed in 1730, down to the Rev. J. L. Mombert's 'English Versions of the Bible,' of which a new edition appeared in 1907. You will find the volumes of Anderson, Cotton, Eadie, Loftie, Dore, Darlow and Moule, Stoughton, and Scrivener of assistance to you here, as well as Westcott's 'General View of the History of the English Bible,' of which a third and revised edition was published in 1905. It contains a useful list of English editions of the Holy Writ. The Huth Collection, that portion of it which was sold in 1911-12, was especially rich in Bibles, as was the Amherst Library, dispersed in 1908-09. This last contained editions from 1455 (the so-called 'Mazarin' Bible) to King Charles the First's own copy of the 1638 Cambridge edition. The sale catalogues of these will be of value to you.
7. Bibliography is perhaps the subject nearest to the heart of every bibliophile. But since the collection of 'books about books' must of necessity be the stepping-stone by which the book-lover attains his knowledge of the extrinsic attributes of his hobby, I have dealt with this subject at some length in the chapter wherein are treated the 'books of the collector.'
Biography.
8. Biography, Memoirs, Diaries: what a flood of names and memories occur to one under this heading! Not only the immortal Boswell and Pepys, but Fanny Burney, Alexandre Dumas, Mary Wortley-Montague, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, et permulti alii. Also, this heading will comprise that great series of mysterious and 'racy' books ycleped 'Court Memoirs,' and the somewhat less exciting but—to our book-hunter's mind at least—more interesting works which border on the domain of history, such as the Memoirs of Blaise de Montluc and Saint-Simon: works which bring home to us the everyday life of those far-off days more clearly than anything that has ever been written about them since.
How meagre is the stock of valuable historical memoirs with which we may furnish our libraries to-day! There is abundance to be had—after long searching, but the great Memoirs which we may have to hand, such as Froissart and Monstrelet, Waurin and La Marche, must number scarce a couple of dozen. Perhaps some day a philanthropic publisher will give us good editions (unabridged) of Sir James Melvil, Sir Philip Warwick, Edmund Ludlow, Bulstrode Whitlock, Sir Thomas Herbert, Robert Cary, Denzil Lord Holles, and many other valuable contemporary evidences now scarcely to be had, and when found usually in ancient tattered calf. Why is it, too, that the great mass of French chroniclers who bear witness to English doings in the wars of Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Anjou and Touraine remain still untranslated and almost unprocurable?