The study of history depends more than any other branch of science or literature on the availability of a large number of books; and the history student nowadays is often discouraged or thwarted by the lack of them, especially of those older authoritative works which have been allowed to go out of print. Even before the war publishers were reluctant to risk reprinting works often running into several big volumes, for which the demand was uncertain and the cost of production high. During the war, air-raids destroyed over a million books in one district of London alone, and reduced to ashes the entire stock of one firm which for generations had specialized in historical works. Since the war, paper has been dear and scarce; the costs of printing and binding have risen sharply; and the demand, though greater, is still not large enough to make worth while the re-publication of many books which historians regard as essential.
One reason for this insufficient demand is the disappearance of the private library. Private libraries of many different kinds and sizes were among the best features of the Victorian age. Few of the dignified and spacious country-houses of that period did not boast of a room lined with bookcases, the shelves of which the owners liked to see filled with handsome volumes, even if they seldom opened them. And in many a humbler home it was not uncommon to find well-thumbed copies of the works of Macaulay and Froude and other famous historical writers. But it seems that in future most people will live in small houses where there is little room for bookshelves; and when the refrigerator, the washing machine and the television set have been paid for, there will be little money left for books. True there are more public and circulating libraries; but they do not fill the gap, nor do their requirements provide the publishers with sufficient inducement to make older historical works more accessible.
The outlook for the study of history is indeed grave; for deprived of the wealth of past historical writing, the student will be cut off from what is surely an indispensable part of his material.”
