2. Book-Collecting Journals
The other principal category of general bibliographical journals
consists of those ostensibly directed toward an audience of book collectors.
They are not necessarily less scholarly, and indeed many of them are
notable for their learned commentary. Thus the dividing line between this
category and the previous one is not distinct; but it makes some sense, for
purposes of classification, to separate those journals associated with book
collecting—by virtue of their title, their content, or their sponsoring
organization—from those journals associated with bibliographical
societies. In practice, of course, the two groups together constitute the
central core of general journals in the field of bibliography. The principal
book-collecting journal in English at present, the
Book
Collector, illustrates the point, for its editorials, bibliographical
descriptions, notes and queries, and reviews maintain a high scholarly
standard. Because it began in 1952—that is, after the start of the
SB checklists—there is no problem about its indexing;
but
part of the run of its predecessor,
Book Handbook (1947-52),
appeared before the
SB coverage, as did all of
Bibliographical Notes and Queries (1935-39), the forerunner
of
the notes and queries section of the
Book
Collector—and
while
Book Handbook is indexed in Turner,
Bibliographical Notes and Queries is unfortunately not
indexed
anywhere.
In fact, the indexing of book-collecting journals in general is
extremely sparse, with only a few of the important ones receiving even
fragmentary coverage. Thus one can go to the English Subject
Index for nearly all (1919-30) of the Bookman's Journal and
Print Collector and for a small segment (1915-22) of the Irish
Book Lover; to the IBBB for most (1930-34) of
Desmond
Flower and A. J. A. Symons's Book Collector's Quarterly
and
for Charles F. Heartman's American Book Collector
(1932-35);
to the International Index for part (1934-39) of the
Colophon; and to Library Literature for the
New Colophon (1948-50) and part (1936-39) of the
Book
Collector's Packet. But even after consulting four indexes, one has
only partial coverage of most of the journals included and no coverage at
all of such landmarks as Paul Leicester Ford's Bibliographer
(1902-03), Heartman's American Collector (1925-28),
the Limited Editions Club's Dolphin (1933-41), and the
publications of the Grolier Club, the Book Club of California, and the
Zamorano Club (Hoja Volante). As for the numerous
book-collecting journals which flourished around the turn of the century,
their contents may now be outdated, but the best of them contained a great
amount of material which is still useful—if for no other
reason—as a
source of information about individual copies of books; this material
certainly deserves to be made accessible through a consolidated index. Yet
of all these periodicals, only Wheatley's Bibliographer (later
Book-Lore, then Bookworm) is included in a
standard
index (Poole).
[18] A thorough index to
bibliographical literature should also cover at least
Bibliomane
(later
Bibliophile and
Book-Worm; 1881-94),
Book Lovers' Almanac (1893-97), Legler's
American
Book-Lore (1898-99),
[19]
Literary Collector (1900-05), the Edinburgh
Book-Lover's
Magazine (1900-09), and
Bibliophile (1908-09), and
perhaps
Philobiblion (1861-63) as well. With so many
book-collecting journals neglected, it is not surprising that still lesser and
more specialized ones, like
Dime Novel Round-Up (1931-
)
and
Miniature Book Collector (1960- ), are ignored; yet all
these periodicals contain material of permanent interest. The two principal
journals in this area, aside from the
Book Collector, that have
started since 1949 are the new
American Book Collector
(1950-
) and the
Private Library (1957- ), both of
which are of course covered by the
SB lists. But the need for
a comprehensive index to the periodical literature of book collecting for at
least the period before 1949 is undeniable; such a work would make
possible for the first time the systematic use of this large body of
bibliographical commentary.
[20]
