The many deficiencies of the following list, especially in the Scottish editions and the New Testaments, will be in part supplied by the enumeration in the Appendix of examples in several collections, public and private. The compiler has endeavoured to see every book named in his work: but this was often impossible ; and in such cases references are given to the authorities on which they are inserted.

Four sizes have been fixed upon as generally applicable: folio, quarto, octavo, and duodecimo. Quarto and octavo bibles count usually in four signatures and four blanks; in some catalogues, that of the British Museum, for example, the two sizes are often confounded. Some duodecimos, again, count in five signatures and seven blanks, other in six and six ; and there is no standard by which to distinguish 12mo. 16mo. 24mo. and 32mo. In the following list, therefore, a rough division is made into “ 12mo. ” and “ 12 mo. small, ” and this, it is hoped, may suffice for the identification of any example.

The compiler is glad to have this opportunity of thanking Mr. Francis Fry for the kindness to which any measure of completeness attained by the present work must be attributed. Mr. Fry at one time contemplated forming a catalogue of his own collection, and most obligingly gave up the materials he had gathered.