[Illustration: _Mr. Clement Shorter's Bookplate._]
Mr. Clement K. Shorter, the editor of the _Illustrated London News_, the _Sketch_, and several other publications, is a book-collector who, like Mr. Wise and Mr. Slater, has pitched his 'tent' on the northern heights of London. Mr. Shorter has an unusually complete set of the works of Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, Sir Walter Scott, Charlotte Brontë--besides the 'Cottage Poems' of old Mr. Brontë--and Matthew Arnold. Of the last named there are copies of the very limited editions of 'Geist's Grave,' 'St. Brandran,' 'Home Rule for Ireland,' and 'Alaric at Rome.' Mr. Shorter's Ruskin treasures include a volume of the plates of 'Modern Painters,' on India paper, bound up in vellum. There are also several first editions of the earlier works of Carlyle, and William Watson's 'Lachrymæ Musarum,' on vellum, with the original manuscript bound up with it. Mr. Shorter has many interesting manuscripts and books by Oliver Wendell Holmes, R. L. Stevenson, and A. C. Swinburne, with autographs or notes by their respective authors. Mr. Richard le Gallienne, the well-known author, has for many years been a confirmed book-hunter, and has come across some rare and interesting finds. Mr. Henry Norman, the traveller and assistant editor of the _Daily Chronicle_, has a number of choice and rare books, chiefly first editions of American authors--J. Russell Lowell, Longfellow, O. W. Holmes, Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Whittier--nearly all of whom were personal friends of Mr. Norman's. Mr. Norman has gone to the extravagance of two sets of the first editions of Thomas Hardy's books, whilst of George Meredith there is one complete set.
[Illustration: _Mr. A. Birrell, Book-collector._]
The House of Commons contains several men who have very excellent libraries and excellent judgments of books. Mr. Leonard Courtney has been guilty of bookstalling a good many times in his successful career, and is, perhaps, an exception to the general rule that good political economists usually make poor book-hunters. Mr. Courtney possesses a good many uncommon books, which he has picked up from time to time. Mr. Augustine Birrell, Q.C., the author of 'Obiter Dicta,' and son-in-law of the late Frederick Locker-Lampson, has a good library of from 5,000 to 6,000 books. Among these may be noticed the first edition of Gray's 'Elegy,' picked up at Hodgson's for 3s. 6d.; first edition of Keats' 'Endymion,' purchased off a stall in the Euston Road for 2s. 6d.; first edition of 'Wuthering Heights'; and an extensive series of books relating to or by Dryden, Pope, Swift, and others of that period, as well as a number of presentation copies of books by Matthew Arnold, Browning, and Tennyson, etc. Mr. T. R. Buchanan, M.P., who was for many years librarian of All Souls' College, Oxford, has a small but select library of books which are, for the most part, remarkable on account of the beauty or rarity of their bindings. It is especially strong in fine specimens of early English and Scotch bindings; there are a few examples from De Thou's library, and a few characteristic specimens of Italian and Flemish bindings of the best periods. The books themselves are principally editions of the classics; but the section of Bibles printed in England and Scotland is a full one. There are also many volumes with a personal interest; for example, the copy of Locke's 'Essay concerning the Human Understanding' was once Coleridge's, and contains a note by him to this effect: 'This is, perhaps, the most admirable of Locke's works; read it, Southey,' etc.; and the copy of the 'Libri Carolini,' 1549, was Scaliger's.