s equally with the private buyer the thin-paper edition of the
Shakespeare Apocrypha, which needs only a third of the shelf space
required for the regular edition, seven-sixteenths of an inch as against
an inch and five-sixteenths. He also looks upon his magazine shelves and
sees a volume of the "Hibbert Journal" with 966 pages in large type
occupying the space of a volume of the "Independent" with 1788 pages in
fine type, or again he sees by the side of his thin-paper edition of
Dickens another on heavy paper occupying more than three times the
lineal space with no advantage in clearness of type. By this time he is
ready to vote, in spite of the occasional disability of overcompactness,
for the book material that will put the least strain upon his crowded
shelves. A conference with the booksellers shows him that he is not
alone in this conclusion. Certain standard works, like the Oxford Book
of English Verse and Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, have almost ceased
to be sold in any but the thin-paper editions. Then there dawns upon him
the vision of a library in which all books that have won their way into
recognition shall be clothed in this garb of conciseness, and in which
all that aspire to that rank shall follow their example. In short he
sees what he believes to be the book of the future, which will be as
different from the book of the present as that is from the parchment
book of the early and middle ages of the Christian era, and as different
in binding as it is in material. The realization of this vision will
involve first of all a readjustment of values on the part of the
public, an outgrowing of its childish admiration for bulk. But this
change is coming so rapidly under the stress of modern conditions of
crowding, especially in city life, as to reduce the vision from its
prophetic rank to a case of mere foresight.

THE CLOTHING OF A BOOK

The binding of a book is its most conspicuous feature, the part which
forms its introduction to the public and by which too often it is judged
and valued; yet the binding is not an integral portion of the volume. It
may be changed many times without essentially changing the book; but if
the printed pages are changed, even for others identical to the eye, the
book becomes another copy. The binding is, therefore, a part of a book's
environment, though the most intimate part, like our own clothing, to
which, indeed, it bears a curious resemblance in its purpose and its