Excerpt from Catalogue of the William Blades Library William Blades was born on the 5th of December, 1824, at Clapham. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to his father, the late Joseph Blades, who was the owner of an old-established City printing business. Carried on at r 3 Abchurch Lane. Blades was required to fulfil in their entirety the covenants of his indenture, commencing with the simplest and most menial duties, and afterwards graduating through the different departments of the case-room, the press-room, and the warehouse. This varied and complete practical experience of his trade was the utmost value to him in after life, not only when the responsibility devolved upon him of directing the operations of a concern which grew to very large dimensions, but when he applied himself to the literary pursuits which eventually occupied all his hours of relaxation from business. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.