e name, to represent such
periods, that all our reference books are from the very necessity of the
case deplorably incomplete? Only by the most devoted, indefatigable and
unrewarded industry have we got such aids to research as to the existence
of American publications, as Haven's Catalogue of American publications
prior to 1776, Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, and the American Catalogues
of Leypoldt, Bowker, and their coadjutors.

These illustrations are cited to guard against the too common error of
supposing that we have in the numerous American catalogues that exist,
even putting them all together, any full bibliography of the titles of
American books. While it cannot be said that the _lacunae_ or omissions
approach the actual entries in number, it must be allowed that books are
turning up every day, both new and old, whose titles are not found in any
catalogue. The most important books--those which deserve a name as
literature, are found recorded somewhere--although even as to many of
these, one has to search many alphabets, in a large number of volumes,
before tracing them, or some editions of them.

One principal source of the great number of titles of books found
wanting in American catalogues, is that many books were printed at places
remote from the great cities, and were never announced in the columns of
the press at all. This is especially true as to books printed toward the
close of the 18th century, and during the first quarter of the 19th. Not
only have we no bibliography whatever of American issues of the press,
specially devoted to covering the long period between 1775 and 1820, but
multitudes of books printed during that neglected half-century, have
failed to get into the printed catalogues of our libraries. As
illustrations we might give a long catalogue of places where
book-publication was long carried on, and many books of more or less
importance printed or reprinted, but in which towns not a book has been
produced for more than three-quarters of a century past. One of these
towns was Winchester, and another Williamsburg, in Virginia; another was
Exeter, New Hampshire, and a fourth was Carlisle, Pa. In the last-named
place, one Archibald Loudon printed many books, between A. D. 1798, and
1813, which have nearly all escaped the chroniclers of American
book-titles. Notable among the productions of his press, was his own
book, A History of Indian Wars, or as he styled it in the title page, "A
selection