The Publishers' Circular informs us that 3,463 different books and
pamphlets have been published in this country in the year 1873, the highest number reached in any other being 659. Some of these are American importations, but the number excludes all new editions, and gives a rate of publication, excluding Sundays, of about ten and a half a day. The pamphlets are extremely few, only 170, that kind of publication having been killed by the newspaper ; and the works of fiction stand foremost, 831. Next comes theology, with 770 works ; and next, to our surprise, 588 books of art, or books so illustrated as to be books of art. After these follow histories, books of poetry, and 288 works of travel, geography, or geographical research. Of course, no list of this sort gives the slightest idea of the public taste, books of theology, for instance, being bought in small editions, but as a rule, left unread. The true test of the taste of a genera- tion would be to find out how many and what books are read twice, a bit of statistics even Mr. Stanley Jevons would find it difficult to collect
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