The English Catalogue of Books for 1919 (Publishers' Circular ;
15s. net) is the eighty-third annual issue of an invaluable record. The editor states that 7,327 new books and 1,295 new editions making a total of 8,622, were published in 1919 ; the corre- sponding total for 1918 was 12,379, and for 1918 it was 7,716. Considering the conditions of the printing trade, it is a surprise to find that there was any increase in the number of publica- tions. It is curious to learn that the volumes of poetry and the drama published last year showed a decline—from 642 to 495 —as compared with 1918; we should have confidently asserted that there had been an increase. "History "—including pamphlets—also declined from 629 to 422, and "military and naval" books from 341 to 216, despite the flood of books about the war. On the other hand, fiction increased from 1,014 to 1,217, including more than two new novels for every day in the year.
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