Gradually this book has become first a rarity and
then a famous possession, so that at the present moment there is
perhaps no volume of recent English verse so diminutive which commands
so high a price among collectors. When the library of Mr. Henry
Bradshaw was dispersed in November 1886, book-buyers thought that they
had a chance of securing this treasure at a reasonable price, for it
was known that the late Librarian of Cambridge University, an old
friend of the author, had no fewer than three copies. But at the sale
two of these copies went for three pounds fifteen and three pounds
ten, respectively, and the third was knocked down for a guinea,
because it was discovered to lack the title-page and the index. (I do
not myself think it right to encourage the sale of imperfect books,
and would not have spent half a crown on the rarest of volumes if I
could not have the title-page. But this is only an aside, and does not
interfere with the value of _Ionica_.)
The little book has no name on the title-page, but it is known that the
author was Mr. William Johnson, formerly a master at Eton and a fellow
of King's College, Cambridge. It is understood that this gentleman was
born about 1823, and died in 1892.
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