The library of Mr. Joseph Knight, the editor of Notes and Queries, more nearly resembles a select and orderly bookseller's premises than a private individual's. It seems almost impossible to believe that the comparatively small house in Camden Square could contain between 12,000 and 13,000 volumes, and yet such is undoubtedly the case. Every room is crowded, and all the sides of the staircases are crowded with books from top to bottom. Mr. Knight's library is essentially a working one, but it is also something more. It is rich in editions of Froissart's 'Chronicles'; in editions of Rabelais—notably the excessively rare one printed by Michel le Noir, 1505; in Elzevir editions it includes a very extensive series; the series of the 'Restif de la Bretonne' includes about 200 volumes, being one of the few complete sets in London. A few of Mr. Knight's greatest rarities have come to him at very cheap rates—e.g., the 'Apologie pour Herodote,' 1566, without any of the cartons, or cancels, upon which the Genevese authorities insisted. This little volume, of which there are very few copies known, cost Mr. Knight 16s., neither buyer nor seller knowing its value at the time of the transfer. Another 'bargain' is the fine copy of Baudelaire, 'Les Fleurs de Mal,' 1857, which was fished out of a fourpenny box in High Street, Marylebone! Mr. Knight's collection of French plays and of works relating to the French stage is, like that of the English dramatists—ancient and modern—exceedingly extensive. He possesses, also, a few good Aldines, a number of Bodonis, and some books of Le Gason.
Mr. Gladstone is, of course, a book-collector, as well as an omnivorous reader. The Grand Old Book-hunter's literary tastes cover almost every conceivable phase of intellectual study. His library contains about 30,000 volumes, to which theology contributes about one-fourth. The works are arranged by Mr. Gladstone himself into divisions and sections. For many years he was an inveterate bookstaller, a practice which of late years has brought with it a certain amount of inconvenience. After attending Mr. H. M. Stanley's wedding, for example, in 1890, Mr. Gladstone went on one of his second-hand book expeditions, this time to Garratt's, in Southampton Row. The right hon. gentleman walked with his customary elasticity, and was followed to the shop by a large crowd of admirers, chiefly consisting of working men, whose enthusiasm was kept in order by three policemen. Outside the bookseller's several hundred people gathered, and they were not disappointed in their wish to see the Grand Old Man, for Mr. Garratt's shop does not boast of a back-door through which fame can escape its penalties. On coming out, Mr. Gladstone, looking, as a working man standing on the kerb expressed it, 'as straight as a new nail,' received quite an ovation, the people waving their hats and cheering vigorously as he drove away in a cab. Mr. Gladstone's marked catalogues are a familiar and a peculiarly welcome feature with second-hand booksellers, who proudly expose them in their windows. A bookseller who exhibited one of these catalogues before the Old Man retired from the Premiership was accosted by a strong Tory with the remark: 'I see you've got a list marked by Gladstone's initials in the window;' and then, whispering fiercely in the bookseller's ear, he added, 'Does he pay you?' We give a facsimile of one of Mr. Menken's catalogues with an order for books from Mr. Gladstone.
Mr. Henry Spencer Ashbee, of Bedford Square, has a small but charming library, nearly every volume being beautifully bound. The books are, for the most part, modern, and chiefly French. There are, for example, Sainte-Beuve's 'Livre d'Amour,' which was suppressed after a few copies were struck off, with the author's own corrections; the Fortsas 'Catalogue,' the cruel joke of M. Renier Chalon; first editions of 'The English Spy,' an exceptionally fine copy; Coryat's 'Crambe, or, his Colwork,' 1611; Roger's 'Poems' and 'Italy'; a number of books illustrated by Chodowiecki, the Cruikshank of Germany; practically all the books published by M. Octave Uzanne and Paul Lacroix in the finest possible states. Mr. Ashbee possesses several extra-illustrated or grangerized books of exceptional interest—the nine volumes of Nichols' 'Literary Anecdotes' are extended to thirty-four, there being upwards of 5,000 additional portraits, views, and so forth. Mr. Ashbee's library comprises several thousand volumes, the binding alone of which must have cost a small fortune.
