Few hobbies, if any, can boast of such a varied and extensive
literature as stamp collecting. Expensive works have been published on
the postal issues of most countries. They have been published in
English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish.
Those published in English alone would make a library of some hundreds
of volumes.

From its foundation, in 1869, the Philatelic Society of London has set
itself the task of studying and writing up the postal history of Great
Britain and her Colonies. Towards the accomplishment of this great
task, it has already presented its members with splendid monographs on
the Australian Colonies, the Colonies of North America, of the West
Indies, of India and Ceylon, two volumes on the British Colonies of
Africa, a separate monograph on Tasmania, and last, and most ambitious
of all, a massive and comprehensive history of the postal issues of
Great Britain. All these works are expensively illustrated with a
profusion of full-page plates and other illustrations, and they
represent years of patient toil, far-reaching investigation, and
untiring research. The _History of the Adhesive Postage Stamps of
Europe_ has been written in two volumes by Mr. W. A. S. Westoby, and
the same author, in collaboration with Judge Philbrick, some twenty
years ago published a work on _The Postal and Telegraph Stamps of
Great Britain_. Messrs. W. J. Hardy and E. D. Bacon, in a work
entitled _The Stamp Collector_, have sketched the general history of
postage stamps. Other works too numerous to mention here have been
written from time to time for the edification of the stamp collector,
and the list is continually being increased by the addition of even
more important works.