University of Virginia Library

D4a. "Constable's Miscellany" subedition. This entry is an example of a condensed form of description that I suggest might be used for all editions of Melville's works after 1891, the year of his death. The idea of shifting, at some point in a bibliography, to a less detailed form of description—a concept sometimes called, following Falconer Madan, "the degressive principle"—has been much debated. By far the most thoughtful treatment of it is to be found in Bowers 1969 (supplemented by Tanselle 1984, pp. 20-28). The decision where to curtail description (if full description throughout is not deemed feasible) involves thinking through the primary purpose of the bibliography: the line would be drawn at one point if the focus is on textually important editions, at another if the aim is to write a biography in bibliographical form, and at still another if the emphasis is on how printers and publishers have handled the work of a classic author. But wherever the line is drawn, one must understand that shorter descriptions do not necessarily mean less research: one is still trying to establish and report certain facts, and the space finally given to them does not necessarily reflect the amount of time required to establish them. Furthermore, the condensed descriptions should still have logic and balance of their own. In the form proposed here some attention is paid to paper and to binding (nothing need be said about typography in an entry for a subedition, unless the typography is altered photographically, electronically, or by means of a Monotype roll); the recording of contents is selective, but the signature and pagination collations, being indispensable, are treated no less fully than they would be for a nineteenth-century edition. No precise form for condensed descriptions can, or should, be prescribed; the description I offer here is intended only as one example of a highly condensed and yet relatively well-rounded bibliographical account.