Cockle Maurice J.D. A Bibliography or English Military Books up to 1642 and of Contemporary Foreign Works

London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co, 1900. — 267 p.None know so well the value of a good Bibliography as those who have had to work at the same time on two topics, one of which has and the other has not been dealt with by a competent bibliographer. In the first case the student knows the obvious books, but he is fully aware that others exist, and it is his duty to find them. The preliminary labour of so doing is often enormous: I have known would-be authors who found it so engrossing that they have finally produced nothing more than a list of sources, where they had intended to write a book. Those who are not so faint-hearted, and who have got well to work on a hitherto neglected subjed:, are always finding new authorities containing fa6ls which make it necessary to delete whole pages of their manuscript. It has always seemed to me that, by some special perversity of fate, a tradt of importance, which has hitherto escaped notice, invariably turns up just as the author has despatched the second revise of his proofs to the press.