Tellers of Tales [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION We are all collectors in one way or another: some of us collect stamps, others birds' eggs, and others again cigarette cards; but at some time all of us have surely collected books. And among all the "crazes" in which we have delighted from time to time, what can be more fascinating and enthralling than that for a "favourite author" ? When we begin to read, our books are largely a matter of chance: we read what we are given, or what our parents still possess of their own early books, or, best of all, what they read to us before we find it easy to read to ourselves. It is only later on that we begin to explore for ourselves, and then again what we find is usually a matter of chance, and unless our "craze" takes us very badly indeed, we lack the power of following it up as far as we should like. How often have we happened to read some book and found that it is just the right sort of story for us—the sort of story that we wish could go on for volume after volume—but which is to us only an isolated joy, like a little island found by chance in an uncharted sea ? Most of the best writers wrote many books, but how are we to find out about these: how can we tell what they are about, or whether they are likely to be the same kind as the one we have just read—or even if any such exist ? When we are older, and come to be interested in the great literature that has been written for grown-up readers, the way is easy for us. Even in early years we can find out all we want to know about Shakespeare or Defoe or Dickens by reading a simple History of English Literature (if you are about ten years old, there is the one by H. E. Marshall; and if you are fifteen,