The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 200: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ARGOSY—ADVERTISING SECTION. In glancing through one of the early vol- umes of Charles Dudley Warner’s ‘‘ Library of the World’s Best Literature, ’’ we met, in the Emerson section, an extract from one of the sage’s fine pages that ran in this wise: (‘Meantime the colleges, whilst they pro- vide us with libraries, furnish no professor of books: and, I think, no chair is so much wanted.’’ It is doubtful if any phrase could so happily describe at once the function and the achieve- ment of Mr. Warner in his new and great ‘work. He himself is essentially a ‘ pro- fessor of books,’’ although the charm of his work has tended to make us forget his wide and varied learning. And knowing not only books but living writers and critics as well, Mr. Warner has gathered around him as advisers and aids other ‘‘profess- ors of books,’’ not men ofthe Dryasdust school, but those who possess the same salient charm and graphic power as himself. The result of this re- markable literary move- ment has been to pro- vide the great reading public, the busy public of ever scant leisure, with just what Emer- son declared more than half a century ago we So much needed, namely, a guide to the best read- ing. Emerson indeed lik- ens a library of miscel- laneous books to a lot- tery wherein there are a hundred blanks to one prize, and finally exclaims that ‘‘some charitable soul, after losing a great deal of time among the false books and alighting upon a few true ones, which made him happy and wise, would do a right act in naming those which have been bridges or ships to carry him safely over dark morasses and barren oceans into the heart of sacred cities, into palaces and temples.”’ This is precisely what Mr. Warner’s new library does in the fine, critical articles which preface the master-works of the greatest writers. Exactly as the professor of chemistry or physics or astronomy or biology gives the student a view of the whole field of his science, the summary of its achievements, its great names and its great works, so Mr. Warner and his associates have given us the RaLtpH WaALpo EMERSON. distillation not merely of the whole world’s literature, in itself a colossal attempt, but, in addition, its history, biography, and criti- cism as well. It is only when we grasp its full import that we realize the truly vast and monumental character of the Library. It must assuredly rank as one of the most notable achievements of the century. In our last issue we called the attention of readers to the fact that there is a wide-spread desire on the part of people from all sections of this great country to secure one of the early sets of Mr. Warner’s Library. In so important and costly a work as the Library, the first edition is indisputably the mostvaluable on account of being printed from the new, fresh plates, thus causing both type and engravings to stand out with unusual clear- ness and beauty, and as it is the custom the world over for publish- ers to charge a much higher price for the first edition than is demand- ed for those that are issued later, one would naturally suppose that the early volumes of Mr. Warner’s Library would have been sold fora high price, but the publish- ers of the work have actually so reduced the price of this most valu- able and desirable of all editions, so that just now it is obtainable for about one-half the regu- lar subscription price, and the additional priv- _ ilege of easy monthly payments is also granted for the purpose of quickly placing a few sets in each com- munity for inspection. Believing many of our readers desire to obtain this superior first edition, we have reserved so sets of the few that now remain, but care should be taken in writing for full particulars to The Harper’s Weekly Club, 91 Fifth Avenue, New York, to mention THe Arcosy, so that there will be no inisunderstanding. The publishers inform us that our reserva- tion in connection with those made by the other leading magazines, fully exhausts the entire first edition of this valuable Library and no more can possibly be obtained. This is positively the last reservation we shall be able to make from the first (and most perfect) edition of this great Library. CORnMIEClOOKS (E(0) OE