Note 905 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

It consists of Part I. (1872), books, nos. 1-2,339. Part II. (1875), supplement of books, nos. 2,340-3,534. Part III. a. (1874) portraits, nos. 1-1,280; b. (1874) autographs, nos. 1-1,508; c. (1874) plates, nos. 1-1,855; d. (1875) atlases and maps, nos. 1-2,288. Many of the larger notes in this catalogue were not repeated in the consolidated Catalogue of Books and Pamphlets, Atlases, Maps, Plates, and Autographs relating to North and South America, nos. 1-3,695, which Mr. Muller issued in 1877. In the preface of his 1872 Catalogue Mr. Muller speaks of his American collection, which formed the basis of Mr. Asher’s Essay; this collection he sold in 1858 to Brockhaus, and another was sold in 1866 to Henry Stevens,—all of which, as well as later acquisitions, formed the foundation of his Catalogue. “Since I began my present business,” says Mr. Muller in 1872, “now more than thirty years ago, my firm conviction has been that the antiquarian bookseller can largely serve science, bibliography, or literary history especially, without forgetting his own profit.... An antiquarian bookseller who is not himself a student, or at least desirous of furthering science by the aid of his connections, will hardly be as successful as he might be in another less scientific calling. Experience has amply shown me that this opinion, merely a loose impression when I first started in business, was correct.” Mr. Muller was born in Amsterdam, July 22, 1817, and was early apprenticed to his uncle, a bookseller of that town, and in 1843 he became a bookseller on his own account, and identified himself thereafter with bibliography. His pupil and friend, Otto Harrassowitz, printed a memoir of Muller in the German Börsenblatt, no. 48; and there is also a sketch with an engraved portrait in Trübner’s Literary Record, new series, vol. ii. (1881) no. 1. He died Jan. 6, 1881.