k to the year
1775, or for very nearly a century, we are without any systematic
bibliography of the product of the American press. The fragmentary
attempts which have been made toward supplying an account of what books
have been published in the United States from the beginning, will
hereafter be briefly noted. At the outset, you are to observe the wide
distinction that exists between books treating of America, or any part of
it, and books printed in America. The former may have been printed
anywhere, at any time since 1492, and in any language: and to such books,
the broad significant term "_Americana_" may properly be applied, as
implying books relating to America. But this class of works is wholly
different from that of books written or produced by Americans, or printed
in America. It is these latter that we mean when we lament the want of a
comprehensive American catalogue. There have been published in the United
States alone (to go no farther into America at present) thousands of
books, whose titles are not found anywhere, except widely scattered in
the catalogues of libraries, public and private, in which they exist.
Nay, there are multitudes of publications which have been issued in this
country during the last two hundred years, whose titles cannot be found
anywhere in print. This is not, generally, because the books have
perished utterly,--though this is unquestionably true of some, but
because multitudes of books that have appeared, and do appear, wholly
escape the eye of the literary, or critical, or bibliographical
chronicler. It is, beyond doubt true even now, that what are commonly
accepted as complete catalogues of the issues of the press of any year,
are wofully incomplete, and that too, through no fault of their
compilers. Many works are printed in obscure towns, or in newspaper
offices, which never reach the great eastern cities, where our principal
bibliographies, both periodical and permanent, are prepared. Many books,
too, are "privately printed," to gratify the pride or the taste of their
authors, and a few copies distributed to friends, or sometimes to
selected libraries, or public men. In these cases, not only are the
public chroniclers of new issues of the press in ignorance of the
printing of many books, but they are purposely kept in ignorance. Charles
Lamb, of humorous and perhaps immortal memory, used to complain of the
multitudes of books which are no books; and we of to-day may complain, if