The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-04-10

Americana the most costly have been
the first edition of the Letters of Co
lumbuS, published in Rome in 1913
one OF the smallest Of Americana eX-
tant, comprising as it does only four
leaves of thirty-fOur lines to the page
Only five copies are known, and for
one of these in 1890 the sum of s., 900
was paid in New York at auction.
Another extremely rare American book
is The Bay Psalm Book" of 1910. Only
two copies have been sold in this coun-
try. One of them in 1875 brought 81, 025;
the other, in 1879, $1,000, the purchaser
in the latter case being Cornelius Van
derbit. who still has the copy. Put
up at auction today THE Bay Psalm
Book would bring far more than
either OF these prices. Good judges
estimate it's value at from $500 to
$4,000
Still another volume in Napoleonic
literature has appeared in PariS-the
Memoirs" of Sergeant Bourgogne. who
was member OF the Old Guard. The
period covered is the years 1872 and
1873, when the star of the Corsican lieu
tenant had begun to decline, it is re-
markable what a flood of literature
bearing on Napoleon the past few years
have seen. One can with difficulty I'M
derStand why it had so long been
neglected. Some Of it has given us en-
tirely new ideas Of Napoleon, so that
his history can now be written from
standpoints quite different from those
taken up by earlier historians.
Literature abounds in examples Of the
facility with which a book may rise to
success independent of the reviewers.
Most remarkable of such books is "Quo
Vadis," which secured from reviewers
no exceptional notices when it first ap-
peared. But the public began to read
it and it's attractions strongly and
surely became known by the familiar
and effective process Of one person tell
ing another. Nearly year had passed
before wide fame came to the book
and then it came with an overwhelm-
ing rush. In smaller way recent
novel called "The Celebrity" has won
success. 1t has gone into three or four
editions before many reviewers have
had word to say about it. Its author,
Winston Churchill, was not known.
There had been no exceptional adver-
Using Of it. But it has made it's way
all the same and very speedily.
Another Brook Farm book is about to
be issued. The charm of that story
seems perennial. 1t has secured in
Hawthorre's "Blithedale Romance" an
immortal place in literature. Thus, the
first book about it is the one destined
to longest life. All the others have
been merely memoirs and biographies
books which cannot live except in Ii
braries and in the minds Of students.
The, new work relates to George Will
lam Curtis associations with Brook
Farm experienced in cooperative liv-
ing. 1t has been written by George
Willis Cooke, who had already written
of Emerson and Concord. Still more
about the place may be looked for in
the promised memoirs of Charles A.
Dana, which is expected to be ready
before this year is closed. Mr.. Danas
letters from Russia, written in the
last year Of his life, have just been
published-a small volume, but inter-
esting, not only as his last but as
chronicling a journey in which keen
observation served it's author and his
readers well.
FRANCIS w Ha1Sau