Book Collecting : an Introduction to Modern Methods of Literary and Bibliographical Detection.

Cloth, small 8vo, xvi, 17-244 pp, 30 plates, ills. From the blurb : "The reader of this book is invited to take part in a real adventure of detection. Instead of looking for the misprint on page 33 and the other minutiae of the first-edition collector, he is sent on a quest for the true reason for a book's existence. Solid though the print may appear to be, the investigator quickly finds that nothing is certain in the history of any individual book. Being the product of many different hands - writers, publishers, paper-makers, printers, binders, etc. - books have been the victim of the most remarkable accidents, closely connected with the political, religious, or social history of their times. Words are twisted, passages withdrawn or altered, illustrations wrongly attributed, authors' and publishers names concealed, bindings transferred, and paper and print subjected to a hundred curious turns. Mr. Collison closely examines the possible reasons for these accidents and suggests a method for each stage of the investigation. He shows how book-collecting can be a fascinating pursuit - and by no means an expensive one - that grows more rewarding as skill is acquired in a hobby calling on all the knowledge that can be accumulated in a lifetime. Fully illustrated." Good in used and price-clipped dustwrapper.…