The Bad Lands cow boy. [volume] (Little Missouri, Dakota [i.e. N.D.]) 1884-1886, 1885-09-03
Old Volumes

sooston 0lopo. az 80 fftEb ~ 5&ti
There are some peculiarities in our
business not generally known re.
marked "a ertain,: second hand book
dealer. of about 5, 600 svolumes rel
Gently sold at auction in thislcIty, there
wore no less than 400 odd volumes.
Tbs suggests the interesting question:
Wat has become of the missing vol
unhesp Allowing sthatsa portion Of
them have been borrowed and never
returned, i have come to the conclu-
s .on-after handling from %, 600 to
$4,000! odd 4volumes-that the balance
are principally accounted for in two
ways. There is class Of people who
mean well. no doubt, but who, finding
anything in a book which s directly
IN opposition: to their religious or
polit cal belief, deem it their duty to
destroy it. AS an ILLUSTRATION of this,
two gentlemen cane into gonrgstore
some time Ego and bought two. copies
ofsThomas Paine cage, Of Reason"
and Immediately threWathem into the
stove. 3tS5.' s
They were theological students, and
probably believed they were doing a
righteous act. Speaking of Paine's
Age of Reason,',' there are now at
least ten times as many copies of it
sold; as there were ten years ago. Then
theresare II hat you may cali prur.ent
moralists who see nothing butyulgarityi
AMI immortality in; many books, pub
Il l.shed during the eighteenth century,
as Fielding's. Smollett's and Stearhe's.l
TO particularlze, port ons of Tom
Jones, tPeregr.ne Pickle, and ..Tri-
STAN sshandyo seem to be particularly
objected to. !, In a four.volume edition
Of Christ m Shandy,,'n'4 The second vol
ume Is almost invariably ;ssing; and
this. is true of the volume containing
Tom Jones most startling amours.
In sets Of Shakespeare. the volumes
missing almost invariably contain
these plays: I. Hamlet,.',s ''Othello,''
and I. Romeo and Juliet.,',F The reason
for their absence, without don' t, Is
that they are generally cons dered the
poets masterpieces. In Gibk on 8
= Rome. fthe volume mis- sing is the
one that .cCnta; nsshis famous chapters
on Chris t'anity, and in Hume it Isl the
one obtaining an account of I the
Reformation and remarks on Catholi-
SAoAA' - Ia tAAC SPOSpagOAr.A ~ 10 USudALv
the matter contained in the third vol
ume of an ghtvolume; edition. which
includes .Addison's s. famous Vision of
Mira. and several Of the Roger do
Coyerley essay fss ~ @
Elbow about A merican books?'
In Mrs. Stowe s !. Uncle Toms Cab.
in' the first yolnme is always gone.
now have on hand no less than ten
copies of the SECOND volume and none
of the first. Then there are a great
many boo ks, as for example, Benton $
Thirty Years ,inathe Senate" Gree
ley s History of the War; and
Blaine's Twenty Years in Congress-
which are publ shed one volume at a
time; and many people, after buying
the first volume, conclude, for some
reason or: other, that. they will not
take the b lance; and in that way a
great many first volumes are thrown
on the arket.s This is Aespec. ally
true Of sency cloped as. as {Appleton's
and the Britannica The first volumes
Of these can he bought much cheaper
than later ones. 4 could give you any
number Of similar examples if YOU
wished them: There as in Paris a
bookstore the only one of the kind,
Ibelieve; in the world which deals
exclusively einsodd volumes.