not a
single expulsion or addition."

In 1855 Mons. Hector Bossange produced a companion volume, entitled _Ma
Bibliotheque Francaise_. It contains a select list of about 7000 volumes,
and is completed with Indexes of Subjects, Authors, and Persons.

For helpful Bibliographical Guides we often have to look to the United
States, and we do not look in vain. A most useful Handbook, entitled _The
Best Reading_, was published in 1872 by George P. Putman, and the work
edited by F.B. Perkins is now in its fourth edition.[2] The books are
arranged in an alphabet of subjects, and the titles are short, usually
being well within a single line. A very useful system of appraisement of
the value of the books is adopted. Thus: _a_, means that the book so
marked is considered _the_ book, or as good as any, _at a moderate cost_;
_b_ means, in like manner, the best of the more elaborate or costly books
on the subject. In the department of FICTION, a more precise
classification has been attempted, in which a general idea of the
relative importance of the _authors_ is indicated by the use of the
letters _a_, _b_, and _c_, and of the relative value of their several
works by the asterisks * and **."

Having noted a few of the Guides which are now at hand for the use of the
founders of a library, we may be allowed to go back somewhat in time, and
consider how our predecessors treated this same subject, and we can then
conclude the present Introduction with a consideration of the less
ambitious attempts to instruct the book collector which may be found in
papers and articles.

One of the earliest works on the formation of a library was written by
Bishop Cardona, and published at Tarragona in 1587, in a thin volume
entitled _De regia S. Laurentii Bibliotheca. De Pontificia Vaticana_
[etc.].

Justus Lipsius wrote his _De Bibliothecis Syntagma_ at the end of the
sixteenth century, and next in importance we come to Gabriel Naude, who
published one of the most famous of bibliographical essays. The first
edition was published at Paris in 1627, and the second edition in 1644.
This was reprinted in Paris by J. Liseux in 1876--"_Advis pour dresser une
Bibliotheque, presente a Monseigneur le President de Mesme_, par G. Naude
P. Paris, chez Francois Farga, 1627."

This essay was translated by John Evelyn, and dedicated to Lord Chancellor
Clarendon. "_Instructions concerning erecting of a Library_; Presented to
My Lord the President De Mesme. By Gab