PREFACE

With this annual cumulation the Book Review Digest completes its fourth year. The volume includes principally the books of 1908 that have been reviewed by expert book critics in America and England. It aims first to record with unprejudiced exactness the scope, character and subject content of books as they appear; and further, to supplement this descriptive information from month to month with excerpts culled from the current reviews appearing in fifty-one American and English magazines that give prominence to book criticism. Thus it furnishes to the librarian a basis for the valuation of books. As the best reviews of a book often appear during the year following its publication, there will be found in this volume supplementary excerpts relating to books which were entered in the 1907 annual. It will be observed that a few entries include only the descriptive note, reviews for these books having not yet appeared; 1909 will furnish the material for appraisement, and excerpts will be included in current numbers of the Digest as fast as reviews are published.

Good, bad, and indifferent books fall into the hands of reviewers who, in the main, honestly reveal the good, bad, and indifferent qualities. The Digest then, in making reviews the basis of its selection of books, includes accredited books, doubtful books, and some books altogether profitless. It is quite as important for a librarian or bookseller to know why he rejects some volumes from a list of new books as it is to have a reason for including others. To aid intelligent book selection is the sole purpose of this bibliography.

J. L. W.