14 SEPTEMBER 1918, Page 16

Mr. Walter Powell and Mr. Cashmere, of the Birmingham Public

Libraries, have edited a remarkable Catalogue of the Birmingham Collection under their charge (Birmingham : Cornish). This bulky volume, containing over eleven hundred quarto pages, is a catalogue of the books relating to Birmingham. It is an excellent piece of work, and will be indispensable to any local historian as well as to special students. For example, the list of publications by or relating to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain is singularly complete. Again, there is a long list of the books produced by Baskerville, Birmingham's famous eighteenth-century printer, whose work, though less pleasing to the modem eye than that of Foulis of Glasgow, led to a great improvement in English printing. It seems that this large collection has been formed within the last forty years ; it does great credit to the civic authorities.