[London publishers’ 1909 catalogue.] Printed catalogue of ‘Macmillan’s Three-and-Sixpenny Library of Books by Popular Authors’; with separate prospectus for ‘The Novels of Charles Dickens’ in ‘Macmillan’s 3s. 6d. Series’.

Two pieces of uncommon Edwardian bibliographical ephemera. Both items worn and aged, and the catalogue somewhat dogeared. Both with some pencil marking. ONE (1909 catalogue): 32pp, 12mo. Drophead title on first page: ‘Macmillan’s Three-and-Sixpenny Library of Books by Popular Authors / Crown 8vo.’ The first two pages carry a description of the series, which ‘comprises over four hundred volumes in various departments of Literature. Prominent among them is a new and attractive edition of The Works of Thackeray, issued under the editorship of Mr. Lewis Melville. [...] The Works of Charles Dickens, reprinted from the first editions, with all the Original Illustrations, and with Introductions, Biographical and Bibliographical, by Charles Dickens the Younger’. Other authors whose works feature in the list are Charles Lever, Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Hardy, Mr. F. Marion Crawford, Rolf Boldrewood, Mr. H. G. Wells, Gertrude Atherton, Mr. Egerton Castle, Mr. A. E. W. Mason, Maarten Maartens, and Miss Rosa Nouchette Carey’, as well as Charles Kingsley, Frederick Denison Maurice, Thomas Hughes, Dean Farrar, Charlotte M. Yonge, Mrs. Craik and Mrs. Oliphant. Descriptive text precedes the Thackeray and Scott editions, and the Dickens and Scott editions each have a page of press opinions. Print runs are given for the 26 works by Rosa N. Carey, and a total of ‘Over 700,000 of these works have been printed’. TWO (undated Dickens prospectus). 4pp, 12mo bifolium on grey paper. First page headed ‘Macmillan’s 3s. 6d. Series’. Predating Item One, since dates of publication (without year) are given for the first six volumes. The first page gives details of the edition, the other three pages carry specimens: p.2 from the introduction to Pickwick Papers by ‘Mr. Charles Dickens, the novelist’s eldest son’, p.3, a page from Pickwick Papers; p.4, an illustration (‘Mr. Pickwick in chase of his hat’) from the same.