A book jobber recently found on his hands an entire warehouse full of obsolete histories in sets of 20 volumes each. They simply wouldn’t sell; nobody wanted to give them away as premiums; their stock was so inferior that secondhand paper dealers laughed at the idea of purchasing them. Then inspiration came to the jobber. He expressed the entire edition to a publisher’s sucker list, accompanied by the following letter.

Sir:

We are forwarding you herewith a set of Professor McFeely’s History of the World From Earliest Times Down to the Inaugural of Chester A. Arthur. There are two bindings available: one in cloth such as we are sending you, retailing for $19.25, the other in beautiful hand-tooled crushed levant, for $39.98. If you should decide you prefer the expensive leather-bound edition you may return the set we are sending you and upon remitting the balance you will receive the other magnificent volumes.

Each sucker actually received the leather-bound edition—in fact, no cloth one existed. But every recipient, imagining that he had received the wrong books by mistake and was gypping the jobber, sent on his $19.25 and kept the books. In no time the entire edition was sold out. (Lucius Beebe in New York HERALD TRIBUNE and reprinted by READER’S DIGEST).

The New York TIMES reports that a new Medical Library building is being erected at the Yale University of Medicine to receive Dr. Cushing’s library and collections, including his letters, diaries and manuscripts. Any of his friends who wish, now or later, to present correspondence, photographs or other memorabilia for permanent preservation among the Cushing papers will receive the appreciative thanks of the university.

The late Merle Johnson, in his “American First Editions” called attention to the fact that there is no formal Bibliography of the writings of Bret Harte. The collector is referred to the sales catalogue of the Charles Meeker Kozlay sale, held at the galleries of the American Art Association some years ago and now on file at the New York Public Library. It is the only known listing of the variants and minutiae.