to her kitchen,
thanked her stars that she had got rid of such a madman!"

To return, however, to the subject more immediately in hand, it
will be observed that the present age is more prolific of bibliophiles
than any preceding one, and that the growing interest in collecting
fine books is attended by a relatively increasing demand for a higher
standard of excellency of manufacture. A few years ago, there were
only two or three publishers in this country who "specialized" in fine
editions, while at present there are no less than thirty publishing
houses, large and small, and as many more "private presses" engaged in
the production of beautiful books to appease the demands of
book-buyers. Many of these are well established and conducted upon
thoroughly honest business principles; some, unfortunately, are not.
The publication and sale of books--especially the so-called "de luxe"
editions--is, like some other branches of industry, beset with
numerous evils; so many sharp practices, indeed, having been resorted
to by a few conscienceless publishers, and by a certain class of
unscrupulous agents, that buyers have become wary, not to say weary,
of being made the victims of their deceptive inventions. It is indeed
lamentable that a few such pestiferous schemers should thus bring a
certain degree of reproach upon the entire publishing business. It is
a common practice among these _soi-disant_ publishers--many of whom
possess neither capital, credit, nor sense of honor--to buy some lot
of etchings or old prints from a junk-shop, or second-hand dealer, at
a trifling price, and thereupon work the same off on credulous
admirers of rare prints for possibly a thousand times their real
value. And it is a common practice for these insidious sharks further
to prey upon unsuspecting book-buyers by obtaining publications of
reputable houses and falsifying them by the insertion of spurious
titles calculated to delude the buyer into the belief that there are
"only fifty copies issued." Many of them are ostracized book-salesmen
who have at some previous time enjoyed the confidence of their
employers, but have been ex-communicated by all honest publishers and
booksellers on account of dishonest proclivities. They are therefore
set adrift to prey upon the public, and are a constant menace to both
publishers and buyers. I shall pay my further respects to these
counterfeiters later on when I come to the subject of Book Clubs; in
the mean whil