dred years old, swarm
in unsalable masses on the shelves of London and provincial booksellers
at a few pence per volume. The reason that they are comparatively rare in
this country is that nobody wants them, and so they do not get imported.

A rare book is, strictly speaking, only one which is found with
difficulty, taking into view all the principal book markets of various
countries. Very few books printed since 1650 have any peculiar value on
account of their age. Of many books, both old and new, the reason of
scarcity is that only a few copies actually remain, outside of public
libraries, and these last, of course, are not for sale. This scarcity of
copies is produced by a great variety of causes, most of which are here
noted.

(1) The small number of the books originally printed leads to rarity.
This is by no means peculiar to early impressions of the press: on the
contrary, of some books printed only last year not one tenth as many
exist as of a multitude of books printed four centuries ago. Not only
privately printed books, not designed for publication, but some family or
personal memoirs, or original works circulated only among friends, and
many other publications belong to this class of rarities. The books
printed at private presses are mostly rare. Horace Walpole's Strawberry
Hill press produced some thirty works from 1757 to 1789, in editions
varying from fifty to six hundred copies. The Lee Priory press of Sir E.
Brydges printed many literary curiosities, none of which had more than
one hundred impressions. Most of the editions of the Shakespearean and
other critical essays of J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps were limited to forty
copies, or even less. The genealogical and heraldic imprints of Sir
Thomas Phillipps, at the Middle Hill press, 1819-59, numbering some
hundreds of different works, were mostly confined to twenty copies each,
and some to only six copies. Some of them are as rare as many
manuscripts, of which several copies have been made, and sell at prices
dictated by their scarcity. Most of them are in the Library of Congress.
The Kelmscott press of William Morris printed in sumptuous style,
improved upon the finest models of antique typography, a number of
literary works, which now bring enhanced prices. Of the many historical
and literary publications of the Roxburghe Club, the Percy Society, the
Maitland, the Abbotsford, and the Bannatyne Clubs abroad, only thirty to
one hundred copies were printed.