We now come to the point when a short description of the more modern methods of book collecting becomes a matter of necessity. For some years it has been the fashion to collect not so much works of a certain class as of particular authors, chiefly those which are embellished with plates. By common consent first editions are, with a few exceptions, alone worthy of note; and it is also an axiom that where a book was originally published in parts, those parts must on no account be bound up in volume form. If the collector should be so ill advised as to bind the parts, notwithstanding the decrees of fashion to the contrary, he may save his position no little by binding in the title-pages and also the lists of advertisements, but if he neglects to do this, then his case is hopeless. This is an example of the ridiculous rules which have been laid down by a generation of autocratic book lovers, not one of whom could in all probability give a satisfactory reason for his _dicta_. It is, however, the rule, and will have to be followed, since great pecuniary loss is certain to follow the slightest infraction of it. Although the amateur does not buy his books to sell again, still I apprehend it is a satisfaction to know that, in case he should ever be compelled, though against his will, to sell them, he will be able to do so without losing by his bargain. Original editions of Dickens' works find a ready market, at ever-increasing prices; but in addition to his better-known books, the very titles of which have now become household words, there are others which are not so generally known, such, for example, as the _Curious Dance_, the _Village Coquettes_ and many small pieces which are scattered about the pages of the magazines, and are usually classed under the heading _Dickensiana_. The same remarks, but even perhaps to a still greater extent, apply to Thackeray and his works, for that great author worked for many years before his genius became recognised. The bibliographer who has smoothed the way for the Dickens and Thackeray collector is Mr. C. P. Johnson, in his _Hints to Collectors of Original Editions of the Works of Charles Dickens_ (1885), and his _Hints to Collectors of Original Editions of the Works of W. M. Thackeray_ (1885). The same author's _Early Writings of William Makepeace Thackeray_ (1888) contains a list of all the pieces which can now be identified, and of the places where they are to be found, so as to put it readily in the power of the biographer, the collector, and the student to refer to them if he will. The _Snob_, _Gownsman_, _National Omnibus_, _National Standard_, _The Constitutional_, and _Fraser's Magazine_ all contain essays, articles, or tales from his able pen, which, but for Mr. Johnson's patient efforts, might have been lost in course of time, when the evidence to identify them would have been wanting.