Charles Bradlaugh
Published: 2015-07-13
Total Pages: 152
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Excerpt from Catalogue of the Library of the Late Charles Bradlaugh In issuing a catalogue of my father's books it has been our aim, not merely to publish a descriptive list of the volumes contained in the library in order to facilitate their sale, but to make it somewhat of a memento of Mr. Bradlaugh himself. With that object we have added a facsimile of his autograph, and a reduced reproduction of one of the two very fine photographs of the study taken last May by Messrs. Dixon of Albany Street, N. W. My father's books were very dear to him, and had always been so, from the time when as a dragoon he was able to carry the whole of his library in his soldier's knapsack, until the day of his death, when his literary possessions had outgrown all ordinary-sized rooms, and had even swelled beyond the capacity of his work-room at Circus Road. They numbered in all rather over 7,000 volumes, about 3,000 Blue Books, besides a very large number of unbound pamphlets. In many respects the library is essentially a poor man's library. There are only a few rare bindings, and comparatively few costly "first editions"; now and again there is a volume missing from a set, and here and there a title page is wanting. But, such as they are, he valued them, all and every one Twice within recent years he thought he should be obliged to sell them to meet legal expenses - the first time it was to pay Government costs during his Parliamentary struggle, the second occasion was after the Peters and Kelly case. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
