"Leviathan," for example-was packed into small type. In the "Carisbrooke Library" there will be no small type. The volumes will be larger; each of about four hundred and fifty pages. They will be handsome library volumes, printed with clear type upon good paper, at the price of half-a-crown, and they will be published in alternate months. In the "Universal Library" the editor's introduction to each volume was restricted to four pages, and there was no annotation. In the "Carisbrooke Library," with larger leisure and a two months' interval between the volumes, it will be possible for the editor to give more help towards the enjoyment of each book. There will be fuller introductions, and there will be notes. Since changes of method and form in the old Library mean the beginning of a new Library with change of name, a simple change is made from the universal to the particular; from the purpose to the one who purposes; from the wide world that yields fruitage for the mind, to the small spot of earth where, if God please, in shades of evening one fruitgatherer will find new leisure to unburthen himself of his little store. In the "Carisbrooke Library," as in the predecessor of which it is an extension, there will be order in disorder. Variety will be still aimed at in sequence of the volumes, while the choice of books to be issued will be still guided by the desire to bring home to Englishmen, without unfair exclusion of any form of earnest thought, as far as may be, some living knowledge of their literature along its whole extent, and of its relations with the wisdom and the wit of the surrounding world. HENRY MORLEY. December 1888. |