BOOK COLLECTORS' NOTES.
THE BOOKS OF THE "NINETIES."
(This is the sixth of a series of monthly articles intended to interest book collectors, and having special reference to the work qf the First Edition Club.) ALTHOUGH Mr. Michael Sadleir's volume Excursions in Vic- torian Bibliography has expedited a revival of interest in " Victorians," and their books issued in parts now adorn and disfigure the shelves of collectors able to afford the luxury of leather cases, the books of the " Nineties " continue to exert a powerful attraction for those who prefer the books of yesterday to those of the day before. Collected by many, they are difficult to find and not cheap when found. I think that interest in the books of that final decade of the last century will never quite die, for they have the, justification of their own temperamental charm, and the virtue of belonging to a recognizable period, when all the world was old—a time of minor masters whose fame rests on few books. The artificiality of the time is reflected even in the appearance of its books, but this, by giving a thread to string them on adds to the collector's pleasures.
There is too little bibliographical material available con- cerning that time, and too much " fine writing." An attempt is now being made by some members of the First Edition Club to consolidate in one vast volume all that can be ascertained, 'before it is too late and the knowledge be lost, concerning the books and men of the " Nineties." The book is to contain brief biographical notes, and accurate, complete bibli- ographies of all the men who made, and were, the movement. It is easier to talk of the " Nineties " period than to define it. 'It can partly be identified as the final flare up of the great Victorian compromise, but from the ashes, what grew ? Most of its makers passed on to other things. It was an inspired movement . . . inspired by Pater, who was the grandfather of it, and supplied most of the new ideas which the movement exploited.
The principal figures of the movement, all well known, were Aubrey Beardsley, Charles Conder, Hubert Crackan- thorpe, Max Beerbohm, Lord Alfred Douglas, Ernest Dowson, Father John Gray, Lionel Johnson, Walter Pater, Arthur Symons and Oscar Wilde. Bibliographies of the work of most of these " artists " exist, but lack completeness.
Another class of writers who participated in, but were not -wholly of, the movement includes Grant Allen, John Davidson, Kenneth Grahame, Henry Harland, Arthur Machen, Stephen Phillips, T. W. Rolleston, A. E. Housman, John Addington Symonds, Francis Thompson, Laurence Housman, John Todhunter, J. McN. Whistler, George Moore, Lord de Tabley, and W. B. Yeats.
Of lesser writers more truly representative of the period
may be named Francis Adams, J. Y. F. Cooke, Olive Custance, Rudolf Direks, Norman Gale, Ella d'Arcy. Baron Corvo, Percy Hemingway, H. D. Lowry, Vincent O'Sullivan, W. T. Peters, Victor Plarr, William Platt, Dollie and Ernest Radford, Robert Ross, Eric Count Stenbock, G. S. Street, H. D. Train, J. A. Noble, Frederic Wedmore, and Theodore Wratislaw.
Information which- is not already public propertyeonoerning the lives and books of those mentioned in these lists will be welcomed by those now engaged in research on this subject. Particularly do I wish to get into touch with readers who have made collections of the books of any of the writers t'S be dealt with ; and I shall be grateful for reminders of important and even unimportant omissions from the list.
Readers of this column who visited the Exhibition of the Printed Work of Claud Lovat Fraser, recently held at the First Edition Club, may be interested to know that sixty- three designs which the artist prepared as decorations for Mr. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, and which have never been used, are now to be published separately by the Club. The volume is to be specially printed on Perusia paper, hand-dyed yellow, and bound in paper boards from a Lovat Fraser design used for the first time on the book. Of the edition of 500 copies all the copies not reserved for members of the Club are already subscribed by the booksellers, and those interested should not lose time in securing a copy.
The Club will also issue in the Autumn Ten Tales, by Ambrose Bierce, which have never previously appeared in
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