Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) AMERICAN BOOKPLATES [Illustration] AMERICAN BOOK-PLATES (EX-LIBRIS) [Illustration] [Illustration] American Book-Plates A Guide to their Study with Examples By Charles Dexter Allen Member Ex-Libris Society London · Member Grolier Club New York Member Connecticut Historical Society Hartford With a Bibliography by Eben Newell Hewins Member Ex-Libris Society Illustrated with many reproductions of rare and interesting book-plates and in the finer editions with many prints from the original coppers both old and recent [Illustration] New York · Macmillan and Co. · London Mdcccxciv COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY MACMILLAN AND CO. Norwood Press: J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE. [Illustration: I]n a few years Book-plate literature will have a place in the catalogues of the Libraries, as it now has in those of the dealers in books. The works of the Hon. J. Leicester Warren (Lord de Tabley), Mr. Egerton Castle, and Mr. W. J. Hardy on the English plates, Mr. Walter Hamilton, M. Henri Bouchot, and M. Poulet-Malassis on the French, Herr Warnecke on the German, and M. Carlander on the Swedish, are all the work of master hands, and are recognized as authorities. In our own country the lists and essays of Mr. Richard C. Lichtenstein and Mr. Laurence Hutton have long been of invaluable service, and occupy a position both at home and abroad of undisputed eminence. A large number of articles has also been contributed to periodical literature by those well informed upon the subject, and numerous monographs testify to the growth of interest in this fascinating study, and by the names of their authors, to the class of scholars and students of antiquarian lore who deem the humble book-plate worthy of their attention. In view of what has been and of what will be written, this present modest attempt to introduce more fully than has yet been done, the book-plates of America, needs to be understood as simply a pioneer work; a great deal of information will reward the patient and painstaking investigator of the future, which is now inaccessible, and without doubt, too, much will be found even within the present to supplement these pages.