ks of certain periods are also much in request, and with
the exception of a few which early celebrity has prevented becoming rare
have increased inordinately in price. The primitive woodcuts in
incunabula are now almost too highly appreciated, and while the
_Nuremburg Chronicle_ (1493) seldom fetches more than L30 or the
_Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_ (Venice, 1499) more than L120, rarer books
are priced in hundreds. The best books on the subject are: for Italy,
Lippmann's _Wood Engraving in Italy in the 15th Century_ (1888),
Kristeller's _Early Florentine Woodcuts_ (1897), the duc de Rivoli's
(Prince d'Essling's) _Bibliographie des livres a figures venitiens
1469-1525_ (1892, new edition 1906); for Germany, Muther's _Die deutsche
Bucherillustration der Gothik und Fruhrenaissance_ (1884); for Holland
and Belgium, Sir W.M. Conway's _The Woodcutters of the Netherlands in
the 15th Century_ (1884); for France the material will all be found in
Claudin's _Histoire de l'imprimerie en France_ (1900, &c.). Some
information on the illustrated books of the early 16th century is given
in Butsch's _Die Bucherornamentik der Renaissance_ (1878), but the
pretty French books of the middle of the century and the later Dutch and
English copper-engraved book illustrations (for the latter see Colvin's
_Early Engraving and Engravers in England_, 1905) have been imperfectly
appreciated. This cannot be said of the French books of the 18th century
chronicled by H. Cohen, _Guide de l'amateur de livre a gravures du
XVIII^e siecle_ (5th ed., 1886), much of the same information, with a
little more about English books, being given in Lewine's _Bibliography
of Eighteenth Century Art and Illustrated Books_ (1898). English books
with coloured illustrations, for which there has arisen a sudden
fashion, are well described in Martin Hardie's _English Colour Books_
(1906). Bewick's work has been described by Mr Austin Dobson.

Appreciation of finely printed books has seldom extended much beyond the
15th century. In addition to the works mentioned in the article on
incunabula(q.v.), note may be made of Humphrey's _Masterpieces of the
Early Printers and Engravers_ (1870), while Lippmann's _Druckschriften
des XV. bis XVIII Jahrhunderts_ (1884-1887) covers, though not very
fully, the later period.

Among books which make an intellectual appeal to the collectors may be
classed all works of historical value which have not been reprinted, or
of which the original e