akes the following statement: 'I
am desirous of becoming recognised as their London agent by all men
outside of England who want books. The need of such an agent is
frequently felt abroad by the heads of literary institutions,
librarians, and book-lovers generally. They shrink from giving trouble
to a bookseller in matters which require more attention and effort than
the mere furnishing of some specific article in his stock, and they must
often wish that it were possible to have the services of a man of
ability and experience at their constant command. Such services I freely
offer to anyone who chooses to employ them; no fee is required to obtain
them, and not a fraction will be added to the cost of the supplies. The
friendly confidence which is necessarily extended to one's agent at a
distance will undoubtedly in time bring an ample return for my labours,
but so far as the present is concerned, I ask for nothing but the
pleasure of attending to the wants of those who are as yet without an
agent in London. Whether the books to be procured through my
intervention be rare or common, single items or groups, the gems of
literature and art or the popular books of the day, I shall be happy to
work in every way for book-lovers of every degree. Commissions of any
kind may be entrusted to me; I will venture to guarantee satisfaction in
every case, even in the delicate matter of getting books appropriately
bound. It may likewise be well to state that my offer of agency extends
to the selling of foreign books here, as well as to the supply of
English books hence.' There is not much that is architecturally
beautiful about Mr. Quaritch's shop at 15, Piccadilly, but its interest
to the book-lover needs but little emphasis after what has been said.
Like all great men, Bernard Quaritch has his little eccentricities, into
which we need not now enter. We apologize to him for publishing the
following extract, which is, however, not our own, but comes (of course)
from an American source: 'Bernard Quaritch's antiquated hat is a
favourite theme with London and other bookmen. A committee of the
Grolier Club once made a marvellous collection of newspaper clippings
about it, and a member of the Societe des Bibliophiles Contemporains
wrote a tragedy which was a parody of AEschylus. In this tragedy Power
and Force and the god Hephaistos nail the hat on Mr. Quaritch's head,
like the Titan on the summit of overhanging rocks. Divinities of the
Strand