Autograph Prices Current. Vol. V. Compiled and edited by A.
J. Herbert. (Published by the editor at 1 Barton Street, Westminster. 25s. net.)—Autograph collectors will find this book invaluable, and those who do not collect will find it ex- tremely interesting. It contains a record of the principal items in the sales at Sotheby's between August, 1919, and July, 1921. The autograph letters and historical and literary manuscripts are described under the names of the writers, or of the personages mainly concerned, arranged alphabetically ; the price paid and the name of the buyer are given in each case, with a reference to the sale catalogue. There is a compact and useful index. The entries are commendably full and often contain extracts from the letters. The Byron MSS., for instance, fill three pages, and one of them runs thus:—.
"I am a solitary animal, miserable enough, and so perfectly a citizen of the world, that whether I pass my days in Great Britain or Kamschatka, is to me a matter of perfect indifference." We notice some good letters from Thackeray, Dickens, Tennyson, Burns, Lamb, Horace Walpole and Garrick among the many autographs catalogued.
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