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Foreword Page 1
FOREWORD
It seems hard to believe that twenty years have gone by since a group of dedicated individuals banded together to form the the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia. It is equally hard to believe, though we have tangible and most impressive evidence to attest it, that this is the twentieth volume of Studies in Bibliography. It is not unusual to be misled by the passage of time, but in this case the illusion has been fostered by the fact that Studies sprang into being full-grown and fully armed, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, whose thunderbolts she wielded from time to time.
The telescoping of time is further assisted by a remarkable record of service on the part of the Society's officers. Mr. Linton Massey has been the Society's long-time President, Mr. John Cook Wyllie its indefatigable Secretary/Treasurer and of course Professor Fredson Bowers has been its Editor, albeit for the last three or four volumes even he has allowed himself an Associate, Dr. L. A. Beaurline. Persistence is a not unfamiliar characteristic of officials of bibliographical societies — A. W. Pollard set the pace with his forty years' editorship of The Library and his forty-one years as Secretary of the Bibliographical Society — but the University of Virginia has in this record of service excelled all its brethren. I am sure however that the members of the University of Virginia Bibliographical Society would agree that the Society with the prestige it now enjoys and the great success it has had is substantially the image of its Editor, whose industry and monumental achievements in analytical bibliography are the admiration of bibliographers.
I am not a colleague of Mr. Puff, nor am I "a practioner in panegyric," but I am sure I am right in offering congratulations to the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, and in acclaiming it on behalf of its brother society in London, and of those in New York, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin, which are celebrated twice yearly by the Colophon Club of London as "The Other Bibliographical Societies," as a thriving, vigorous body, devoted to the pursuit of scholarly objectives, as a significant publisher in the field of bibliography, as the inspirer of young book-collectors and as the crusader for the highest standards in printing and book-production.
That I, as immediate Past President of the Bibliographical Society, should have been asked to introduce this twentieth volume is a compliment which I appreciate deeply and acknowledge most warmly on behalf of the Society and of myself as its spokesman. Professor Bowers surely drew much of his inspiration from the work of our Society and
Sir Frank Francis, K.C.B.
Director and Principal Librarian of the British
Museum
The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, like the venerable Royal Society of London, came into being because divers worthy and inquisitive persons met to form an invisible college. This issue of Studies in Bibliography commemorates the twentieth anniversary of that notable conjunction. To members of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia in the old world and Asia (of whom there are hundreds), a 20th birthday will seem the mark of youth, and to members in the new world (of whom there are hundreds) it is also a mark of accomplishment and stability.
I am pleased, therefore, as President of the University which cherishes the Society, to salute a notable institution upon its attainment of an age that symbolizes both vitality and maturity.
The renown of Studies in Bibliography, and of the senior editor who has fulfilled that responsibility from the initial volume, requires no elaboration or other encomium. As a consequence, I take this occasion to allude to the invisibility of the supporting structure of a society which in twenty years has published not only twenty volumes of annual Studies but also more than twice that number of separate bibliographical monographs. Although some of the moving spirits of this invisible college, with their modest inclination for anonymity, conceal their good offices, it is appropriate on an anniversary to applaud the officers and council whose names appear on both the earliest and on the current rosters of managers: Fredson Bowers, Joseph Carrière, Chalmers Gemmill, Atcheson Hench, Linton Massey, Eleanor Shea, Arthur Stocker, and John Wyllie.
This list includes bibliographers, literary critics, patrons of the arts, a physician, a philologist, and a classical scholar. It is a pleasure also to recognize three successive librarians of the University of Virginia — Harry Clemons, Jack Dalton, and John Wyllie — and to commend them for the impetus which they have given to this learned enterprise.
To these, and to all of my fellow members of the Bibliographical Society, I send cordial greetings, with congratulations upon a past that bespeaks an illustrious future.
Edgar F. Shannon, Jr.
President of the University of Virginia
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