First and foremost then, take down your copy and note whether the number of the illustrations is 216 or 219. Happy as you are if you possess the latter, twice happy will you be if the former be yours, for in this case you will be the owner, not only of a first edition, not only of an edition containing the cancelled illustrations, but also of the edition from which the best idea of the beauty of the original drawings may be got. And for this {177} reason, that in all but this, the 1888 edition, the reproductions have been greatly reduced in size. Of course we are here concerned with the cancelled pictures, “Wild Darrell” on page 43 and “Calling for the Squire’s Mailbag” on page 311, but we must remember that their chief value lies in their being the guarantees of our having an _editio princeps_. So we have it that in this instance as in the case of _Trilby_ the earliest issues have the double charm of satisfying at the same time our taste for the beautiful and our appetite for the curious. Unlike the case of _Trilby_, however, we have here no romantic circumstances such as appeal to the true bibliomaniac. The cancellation is merely the result of a laudable determination on the part of the artist and his publisher to eliminate such illustrations as they do not consider altogether exemplary. Incidentally of course their action enhances, in the eyes of the bibliomaniac, the value of those copies which they rightly consider marred by their inclusion. But this is no business of theirs. They are not concerned with diseased humanity but with the poor sane public for whom they cater. {178} The above remarks apply of course to many minor suppressions of the same kind. There is, to take one example, the well-known case of Curmer’s 1838 edition of _Paul et Virginie_ and _La Chaumière Indienne_ superbly illustrated by Meissonier, Tony Johannot, Huet, and others. This book is a standing compliment to British wood-engraving of the day, for, though published in Paris by a French publisher, by far the larger number of the blocks were entrusted to Samuel Williams, Orrin Smith, and other British hands. In the earliest issue appears on page 418 the wood-engraving of “La Bonne Femme.” Engraved by Lavoignat after Meissonier it was suppressed in later issues probably because of its ugliness, whether the fault of artist or engraver I know not. At any rate the engraver was not one of the British contingent. {179} CHAPTER IX THE SUPPRESSED OMAR KHAYYAM ETCHING