THE ROWFANT LIBRARY. A CATALOGUE OF THE PRINTED BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS, AUTOGRAPH LETTERS, DRAWINGS AND PICTURES, COLLECTED BY FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON. BERNARD QUARITCH, LONDON, 1886. B1651.1 HARVARD COLLEGE APR 18 1887 LIBRARY Cryes Fund. LONDON: S. AND J. BRAWN, PRINTERS, 13, GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C. PREFACE. IT is a good thing to read books, and it need not be a bad thing to write them; but it is a pious thing to preserve those that have been sometime written: the collecting, and mending, and binding, and cataloguing of books are all means to such an end. This is my apology for the present volume. I had intended to annotate some of these curious and rare volumes, for I have a decided opinion about a good many of them By doing so I should have given my Catalogue the distinct quality that comes of ownership and affection, but failing health, and a desire not to delay that which those who come after me might find irksome, or even impossible, has prevented this. Let me say, however, that the little Book-Collecting World has no need for regret, as the editorial duties have been ably performed by Mr. Alfred W. Pollard, of St. John's Coll., Oxford, and the Library of the British Museum, and by Mr. R. H. Lister, of the Board of Trade, to both of whom I here tender my cordial acknowledgments, and grateful thanks. b |