Quote Chemical, Medical, Biological, Technical, Agricultural, Natural
Sciences & All Kinds of Scientific Magazines, Biographies of Medical &
Chemical Men
_Chemical and Medical Books Especially Early_
Moreover, collectors today who look somewhat wistfully on the mounting
prices of fifteenth century editiones principes (which means first
editions) of Gutenberg Bibles even in single leaves, or of that familiar
favorite, the Nuremberg Chronicle, are probably unaware that many
incunabula are still available for much less than $100. The elusiveness
and high price of all incunabula are as much a fiction as the belief
that it is impossible to identify individual volumes.
It is generally admitted that there are in existence some 40,000
separate editions of books published during the fifteenth century. No
one has yet had the hardihood to attempt to count all the known copies
of these editions. One of the best modern efforts to gauge their extent
was that of K. W. Hiersemann in his “Verlagskatalog”, Leipzig, 1924. He
estimated that there were at least 450,000 pieces of incunabula around,
or an average of more than eleven copies of each known edition.
In undertaking to investigate the present-day holdings of incunabula in
all countries, Fremont Rider, librarian of the Olin Library at Wesleyan
University, reported that Germany, the birthplace of printing and native
home of most incunabula, is still, according to the latest available
records, the largest holder of such books. With 105 libraries owning a
hundred volumes or more, it registers a total of 115,927 volumes. Italy
ranks second with 70,721. France makes a poor third with 35,278, just
nosing out Great Britain’s 34,045. Austria comes next, outranking the
United States, which can muster 22,166 volumes. Poland, Switzerland,
Czecho-Slovakia, Spain, Holland and Russia follow next in order. In the
25 countries listed with libraries of a hundred or more volumes, Mr.
Rider has located 380,750 titles.
The outstanding single collection of incunabula is in the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek at Munich, with its 16,000 volumes. The British Museum
comes second with 11,500, the Bibliotheque Nationale third with 10,000.
The Huntington Library’s 5,200 take sixth place, while the 3,600 in the
Library of Congress entitle it to rank seventeenth among the libraries
of the world. Despite the great influx of incunabula into this country
in recent years, the resources of the European collections are
incomparable. It is perfectly true that most American libraries regard
the acquisition of a single incunabulum as a rare treasure, while many
unheard-of European libraries of religious orders or princely families
own far more volumes than our largest and richest universities.
JAMES F. DRAKE, Inc.
24 West 40th St.
New York
First Editions
Rare Books
Autographs
_We are particularly interested in unusual Kipling items._
Mr. Rider’s analysis makes no attempt to assay the contents of the
various collections, as his concern is only with a quantitative
analysis. Some of the scarcest and most important incunables have found
their way into this country. As a result of an inquiry among the 236
most likely sources in the United States, a table is shown giving the
relative sizes of incunabula collections in twelve institutions and over
a hundred colleges and universities. Following the Huntington and the
Library of Congress are Harvard University with 1,860 volumes, the
Pierpont Morgan Library with 1,800 and the Newberry Library with 1,634.
The Folger Shakespeare Library contains a surprisingly large
Shakespearean ancestry of 250 fifteenth century sources. The summary
leaves out of account the growing private collections, confined mostly
to this country, whose numbers should materially affect the figures and
perhaps the order of rank. Otherwise it gives a satisfactory account of
the distribution of incunabula in public institutions.