SIX MILLION BOOKS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 799, 23 April 1910, Page 9

SIX MILLION BOOKS.

. A There -is one kind of biography (writes '"jS. A v Scott-James _ in. the . "Daily. : JfeW'); which;' in> J -the''"right'"- hands';' Blight prove to be well worth writing, but so far as. I know, has"■ never yet been written—the biography ai an ordinary book- There are, indeed, a few volumes—folios of . ■Shakespeare/: 'rare first editions of famous poets, and the .fike—whose history has-, been traced from' library to library, from saleroom . to.. saleroom, from millionaire Xα : millionaire. But,'of.'.such {-books '••I«am-Vnot' speaking. I.am.thihking of'the humbler work for which no;, bibliophile sighs and.searches, 'tfie : v6ruine of' traveller ;fiction or:poetry, or biography, or criticism, which passes from the publisher to the boo'iishop or the library, from the bookshop to the private collection, 'and thence to the second-hand etoll or-the dust-heap, ,

:• But I have riot often come across a second-hand volume of Messrs. Dent's Everyniaji -not issued, like other books b"y the hundred er the'tliousahd,',-but by tens arid scores of s thousauds,' till , the' total number of all the. volumes already, sold amounts, I tndersizind, to about six millions. Six millions of books, chosen from '. among the classics' of the language, • poured over the country!'; -Six... million books bought not by those who wish to lend them, but by those who mean to keep , them. Those are some , of the books that \ should like to follow into their secret recesses; it would be worth while to know what are- these vast crowds of undemonstrative people who persistently buy and read and keep books that are hallmarked among the classics. | /"I say "persistently," for nothing is Bore"'astonishing than the .regularity with'which;fresh sets of these, shilling volumes are issued; not only.hooks of fiction orromantic poetry,'but solid historical works, philosophy, science, criticism, and translations from the classics and from foreign' authors.... They come out fifty at a time, and each fifty is 'multiplied'into'ten or twenty thousand copies. To-day fifty more are published, making in all four hundred and fifty,.and next month yet another fifty will bring the total number of volumes in the Everyman' Series to five hundred. .::";. ~ :, ' - '.- ■ ....

~ And it must.jbe yno.te.d-- N that.,--.these. Btrongly-bound.;hopks,-containing., each of them fpur.,;or;:five,-;or six hundred clearly-printed"'pages.'apiece, are • not tricked out- for the acceptance of a Billy and-ignorant public. Those .six volumes of "The Decline arid Fall of the Roman Empire," the: first three of which ; are now issued, present.no trun-cated-;or dished up text. Here we have tie whole thing, with- every , one of those voluminous '■ and fascinating notes in which the author so cynically '.ex.pressed. his personal prejudices. .'Here we have "Plutarch's Lives" iri . three Volumes—the "Dryden • Plutarch." 1 regret that it should not have been North's Plutarch,.but I believe that on the -whole : this translation is..the , more Bccnrate,. and by reason of its inodem English : more suitable for those who wish,to read it side , by side with' the original. Wα hay* also "The Moral Discourses, of-Epictetus," "The" High History of; the Holy Graal" ; and of "Theßarhayaria and the Vahabharata", we , have, Hhongh r.ot-m this case a full text,, an .admirable condensed version by a distinguished Hindu man-of-letters, Bomesh, Chunder Dutt. I-cannot here enumerate the many excellent ,w<irfcs, fitted loth- for 'Popular reading and for severe study, which are included in the new issue. , '' '-

Mtich.RS one may decry the lamentable: condition of modern creative'litera-" atwjiat'.'eiioch :n-dt l Jrtieh' 3ecried the literacy' contomporaricsPrr^one cannoil biit , ropard it "as A .significart.irntter that, bid bopts! ! - iested;.books, should be thus'read ..in "their complete for,ni in ever-increasing , number'!. It would- folly;to suppose that all these [.-voluiifes.' be... purchased merely for ostentation, because at is fashion able, to have a lihrary. Such la fashion, indee'l, would rot-only-ar-gue some ordinal impetus towards lct-l-ers,;,fcut would, also .tend ;t<i.' ; proni n to the genuine.:popularity;of letters. ■..Wβ hear much r about new; authors, wvr 800k5,.-rcVh'dea. , !/but !we,camiot.distinguish the. few whii'li'nro Kehuine and. of value from those, wbich ■and worthless, uritil we. have-- familiar--ssed .ourselves with tlje.. .loknbwlefla'J.'] that has been thought i*nd .written in the world." And tho

prodigious fact is now emerging that at least as many books, old books, embodying ,"tho best that has been thought and written in tho world," are now in circulation as books that are shoddy, ephemeral in conception and extcution, written with tho design of alluring and hoodwinking an ignorant reading public. I call this a prodigious fact, because it is. a sign that that popular jcducation which was initiated forty years ago can justify itself, and is destined to justify itself more fully. Old ideas are not inferior to new ideas, and every idea is a new idea to him who comes upon it for the first' time. Hundreds of thousands of people cannot be buying and reading these books-so consistently -without faniiliarising themselves •irith. ideas';, and'in a popular familiarity with ideas lies the sole hope of democracy. I do not say that l to have read with delight a few dozen first-rate books is sufficient for intellectual salvation; but I do say it is .indispensable to 11, that it is a.necessary.preliminary to becoming familiar with ideas, to being civically competent, to pass judgment on the broad issues which are put before tho elector, and confront the responsible person at every moment of his life. :

Many, publishers, besides ' Messrs. Dent,'are doing excellent work in disseminating cheap reprints of the classics. Bu£\ especial urniso is chip to the promoters of the "Everyman Series, because of thfi thorough and consistent way and tho attractive form in .which they are issuint; these books, because they give comnlefe texts, because they Drops gate the less known as well a? the best.known classics, and because of the vast sortie nn which they are promoting a popular library, making it .1 really important factor in national education.