at entire library since published, is a
valuable contribution to American bibliography.

Mr. Stevens was one of the most acute and learned bibliographers I have
known. He was a man of marked individuality and independent views; with a
spice of eccentricity and humor, which crept into all his catalogues, and
made his notes highly entertaining reading. Besides his services to the
British Museum Library, in building up its noble collection of Americana,
and in whose rooms he labored for many years, with the aid of Panizzi and
his successors, whom he aided in return, Stevens collected multitudes of
the books which now form the choice treasures of the Lenox library, the
Carter Brown library, at Providence, the Library of Congress, and many
more American collections. To go with him through any lot of Americana,
in one of his enterprising visits to New York, where he sometimes came to
market his overflowing stores picked up in London and on the continent,
was a rare treat. Every book, almost, brought out some verbal criticism,
anecdote or reminiscence of his book-hunting experiences, which began in
America, and extended all over Europe.

He was not only an indefatigable collector, but a most industrious and
accurate bibliographer, doing more work in that field, probably, than any
other American. He wrote a singularly careful, though rapid hand, as
plain and condensed as print, and in days before modern devices for
manifolding writing were known, he copied out his invoices in duplicate
or triplicate in his own hand, with titles in full, and frequent
descriptive notes attached. His many catalogues are notable for the
varied learning embodied. He was a most intelligent and vigilant book
collector for more than forty years, his early labors embracing towns in
New York and New England, as purveyor for material for Peter Force, of
Washington, whose American Archives were then in course of preparation.
Among the library collectors who absorbed large portions of his gathered
treasures, were James Lenox, Jared Sparks, George Livermore, John Carter
Brown, Henry C. Murphy, George Brinley, the American Geographical
Society, and many historical societies. He was an authority on all the
early voyages, and wrote much upon them. No one knew more about early
Bibles than Henry Stevens.

His enterprise and ambition for success led him to bold and sometimes
extensive purchases. He bought about 1865, the library of Baron von
Humboldt, and this a