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I
The various kinds of scholarly endeavor often referred to as "bibliography" are interrelated, and the history of any one of them necessarily impinges on the history of the others. But they represent such diverse activities that they have usually been taken up separately. The history of the listing of books, insofar as it is concerned with listings by subject, is primarily a part of the history of the study of each of those subjects. Trends in such listings, however, along with general considerations of the principles underlying the listing of books, do merit consolidated historical treatment, constituting the history of what is traditionally called "enumerative bibliography" (and has also been called, appropriately, "reference bibliography").[4] Significant historical work has in fact been accomplished in this area, the best-known examples perhaps being Georg Schneider's Theory and History of Bibliography (translated by Ralph R. Shaw in 1934 from the 1926 edition of the 1923 work), Theodore Besterman's The Beginnings of Systematic Bibliography (1935; 3rd edition, in French, 1950), the books of Archer Taylor (Renaissance Guides to Books, 1945; A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies, 1955; Book Catalogues: Their Varieties and Uses, 1957 [revised by William P. Barlow, Jr., 1986]; General Subject-Indexes since 1548, 1966),
Some lists focus more on books as physical objects than on books as conveyors of information; and although the two approaches are not always distinguished in works on bibliographical enumeration, they represent fundamentally different impulses. Even so, a single list can obviously involve both, as when the scope of a list is determined by subject matter and the form of the entries by attention to the identification of editions and impressions. One class of lists concerned principally with books as printed items, not as transmitters of texts, consists of what are often called "imprint lists" or "imprint bibliographies"—that is, lists that attempt to record all printed matter (or all in certain categories) produced within a given geographical area during a particular period of time. Even when such lists contain entries with no physical details, what underlies them is as much an interest in printing and publishing history as in the history of ideas, and those lists are thus relevant to the story of the development of analytical and descriptive bibliography. The famous Short-Title Catalogue of pre-1641 English books, though it tries to keep physical details to a minimum, is a work of physical bibliography, aiming to differentiate editions; and its history is tied up with the history of the Bibliographical Society in London, a society interested in the history of books, not in the production of lists. Similarly, the list now usually called "Goff," recording copies of incunabula in American libraries, has played a major role in the history of the publications of the Bibliographical Society of America. Thus the history of those reference works that take books (rather than works) as their concern forms a branch of bibliographical history distinct from the history of subject lists.
But it is not a branch that has been much pursued. Some such works—like the STC itself—include accounts of their own history,[7] and a few essays exist that are useful in tracing the history of these works (principally pieces by those associated with the projects, such as W. A. Jackson and Katharine F. Pantzer on the STC, and Donald Wing and Robin Alston on the short-title catalogues for 1641-1700 and 1701-1800).[8]
If the history of bibliography deals not with the history of books but with the historiography of that history, with the story of how that history has been pursued, then the history of libraries might be considered not strictly part of it. For the purchasing and the collecting of books by institutions are—like the production of books by printers and the dissemination of them by publishers and booksellers—stages in the life cycle of books, from the origin of their texts in writers' minds to the reading of those texts by persons who encounter the books. This cycle, from beginning to end (the end often enough leading to a new beginning), is the subject matter of the history of books. Nevertheless, librarians, who naturally influence the course of the history of libraries and collecting, are also scholars of the book: they are part of book history themselves, and in addition they are students of that history. Indeed, the history of all scholarship that involves the use of books is ultimately tied to the history of books (and therefore of libraries). I. R. Willison, in his lecture On the History of Libraries and Scholarship (1980), makes a similar point, observing—and welcoming—a growing recognition of "the historical interdependence of libraries and scholarship" (p. 7). John P. Feather and David McKitterick have reinforced this position in their lectures printed as The History of Books and Libraries: Two Views (1986), the former pointing out that "the history of libraries is . . . part of the larger subject of book history" (p. 14) and the latter concluding, "Far from being divorced from other parts of bibliographical study, the history of libraries is essential to it" (p. 30). It is thus fruitless to try to enforce a sharp dividing line between the history of books and the history of bibliography. But the distinction may still be useful as a framework for thought: it may help one to see, for example, that the biographical
These points about the relation of library history to bibliographical history can be duplicated for the history of the antiquarian book trade and the history of collecting by individuals—in a way that they could not be for the history of printing or typefounding or papermaking or binding. Printers, typefounders, papermakers, and binders may also happen to be scholars, but their role in the cycle of book history is connected with the physical production of books, not with receiving or responding to finished books.[16] Dealers and collectors, however—though they, too, play a role in book history—deal with the completed object; and their manner of approaching it makes them bibliographical scholars, in one degree or another, in the very process of carrying out their function in the history of a book. Publishers fall in between, controlling production but also handling completed books.[17] Biographies and autobiographies of dealers and collectors (and often of publishers) are therefore contributions at once to book history and to bibliographical history. Broader historical studies of the book trade and of collecting may of course lean in one of these directions rather than the other, but in either case they remain, by the nature of their subject, a mixture of both. One does not normally think of the historical works on bookselling or on collectors and collecting[18] as studies of bibliographical history. But the greatest broad works in this area—such as John Carter's Taste & Technique in Book-Collecting (1948) and Graham Pollard and Albert Ehrman's The Distribution of Books by Catalogue from the Invention of Printing to A.D. 1800 (1965)—can readily be regarded as making direct contributions to the history of bibliography, for the authors' own interest in the analysis of book structure and their understanding of the importance
The work that bibliographical scholars do, after all, is one of the ways in which books can be used; and those scholars can therefore be seen, along with other readers (and dealers, librarians, and collectors), as an element in the world of books. Viewed in this way, the history of bibliographical scholarship is simply one part of the history of books. How one finally decides to relate bibliographical history to book history and to delimit the activities subsumed under the two terms is less important than having a clear idea of the considerations involved. Historical studies relating to books need not be conceived of as falling into only one of these categories, but writers of them ought to have given thought to the fact that their subjects do involve the intermingling of two separate strands. Scholarship, being historical, is by nature retrospective; but it moves forward through its use of the past and is part of the stream of history. To understand that booksellers and librarians and collectors participate in this double view can only enrich our studies of them, whether we call the results contributions to the history of the reception of books or to the history of bibliographical scholarship.
I raise these points not to encourage compartmentalization but to provide a context for thinking about the history of what may be considered the central core of bibliographical study, the part dealing with physical analysis. These other areas are unquestionably parts of bibliographical activity in the broadest sense, and the investigation of the course of their growth merits strong encouragement. But I wish to concentrate here on physical bibliography, which has received far less historical attention and which is central in that all uses of books as conveyors of information presuppose some attitude toward the physicality of books as artifacts. Those who make lists of books and those who sell and buy and read books do not always think through their position on this matter, but the way in which they pursue their work does nevertheless imply a position.
Physical bibliography directly confronts the physical evidence in books, working out methods of analysis to reveal information about how books were produced and then assessing the implications of that information for classifying books (in relation to other books purporting to represent the same works) and for establishing texts (understanding how the texts in books have been affected by the means of their production). The development of this kind of analytical bibliography, and of the descriptive bibliography and textual criticism that build on it, is one of the remarkable stories in the history of twentieth-century scholarship. A relatively
When one thinks about what work of this kind already exists, one is likely to name first the volume published by the Bibliographical Society (London) on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary—The Bibliographical Society, 1892-1942: Studies in Retrospect (1945). This excellent collection of ten essays (edited by F. C. Francis) is a particularly fitting product of the Society's jubilee, for the Society was at the heart of the new developments in bibliography in England during the first half of the twentieth century, and the volume provides the best account yet written of the bibliographical history of that period.[21] Besides an essay by F. C. Francis on the history of the Society itself and an important statement by W. W. Greg setting forth a conception of the field that reflects its then-recent history ("Bibliography—A Retrospect"), there are assessments of the work on incunabula (by Victor Scholderer), STC books (F. S. Ferguson), Shakespeare (F. P. Wilson), the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Harold Williams and Michael Sadleir), foreign bibliography (Henry Thomas), and early bookbinding (E. P. Goldschmidt), and of bibliographical work in America (W. A. Jackson). The authors were prominent among those who had made the field what it was, and for this reason the volume is a primary document of importance to future historians; they were also scholars, and their essays display a mastery of the areas covered and a scrupulousness in forming generalizations. The work is not principally one of reminiscence but is an attempt to achieve a balanced view of the recent past, a perspective on activities in which the authors had been involved. Historians inevitably bring some predispositions to their reconstructions of the past, and first-generation historians may understandably bring more of them. Whether or not they in fact do varies from one individual to another, but personal involvement naturally plays a role. In his preface, F. C. Francis says of A. W. Pollard that "it was his genius to bring into the Society's life a personal element, a sense of common adventure, which has been one of its most valuable features and which I hope will never disappear from it" (p. vii). That "sense of common adventure" emerges repeatedly in the volume, as it does in many other writings by members of the circle—such as R. B. McKerrow's
The Studies in Retrospect volume is therefore unusual in being both primary documentation and scholarly history. As the former—and it is in fact a key document—it will obviously be of permanent use, regardless of how many other historical accounts are written. As the latter, it is worth citing here not because there is so little else to point to but because some of its essays are outstanding contributions to the history of scholarship and will remain so, no matter how excellent future treatments may prove to be. The volume offers us—as prospective historians of bibliography—a double model, encouraging us by example to write about our own immediate past in a scholarly way and demonstrating an approach to bibliographical history that is applicable to any period. The essays vary considerably in their achievement, but the most celebrated one—and rightly so—is F. P. Wilson's, entitled "Shakespeare and the 'New Bibliography.'" It is appropriate that his essay (by far the longest) should be the centerpiece of the volume, for his subject is central to the accomplishment of the Bibliographical Society in its first half-century: given the interests of Greg and McKerrow (and, through them, of Pollard), the application of physical evidence to textual problems was most extensively developed and demonstrated in connection with the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, particularly Shakespeare. Wilson's essay has fortunately reached a new audience through its republication in 1970 as a separate volume with a preface by Helen Gardner, who revised the text according to notes left by Wilson and added (in bracketed footnotes) some supplementary commentary of her own. In Wilson's essay, she says in her preface, "The story of the development of Shakespearian textual studies was narrated with a range and ease of reference that sprang from massive learning so fully digested that it never clogged the coherent progress of the narrative and the argument." The essay, she went on, "had the unmistakable note of authority that profound historical scholarship gives" (p. vi). By referring both to "narrative" and to "argument," she is calling attention to what makes historical writing profound. Narratives must be shaped; and the knowledge and insight that cause one to see connections, and enable one to assess previous contributions critically, produce the argument that gives narratives their power to illuminate. Another way of making the same point is provided by her statement that Wilson's essay is both "a contribution to the history of scholarship"
Wilson's essay was in fact a history of a field—the "new" bibliography (that is, analytical bibliography applied to textual problems)—not just a history of bibliographical and textual work on Shakespeare. Since the time of his essay there has been no similar effort to cover any field, or subfield, of bibliographical study. The paucity of work forces me now to allude to two pieces of my own. I do so not to suggest that they are models of any sort (least of all in comparison with Wilson's essay) but to emphasize how little work has been done and to underscore an approach for further writing. Both are addresses delivered on retrospective occasions, one for the fiftieth anniversary of the Osler Library in 1979 and the other for the centennial of the Grolier Club in 1984.[22] In each case the subject is primarily the development of physical bibliography in the twentieth century, encompassing bibliographical analysis and its use in descriptive bibliographies and critical editions. That each of these pieces covers, at a length appropriate to an address, an area broader than Wilson's indicates the sketchiness of the treatment. Yet what I tried to show were the main lines of change and the principal issues, as they appeared to me. In dealing with author bibliography, for example, I took as central the shift from a reliance on checklists that enumerate points for identification to a greater understanding of the role of descriptive bibliography as publishing history and biography; and I made clear that in my view this shift was a welcome one, away from casualness and oversimplification and toward serious history.[23] Whether or not one agrees with my emphases or my judgments, one will find that I have offered not only a view of the past but also a way of looking at the field and evaluating its products. It is this double concern that I wish to stress, not whatever merits or flaws my own work may have. I hope that others will proceed in this fashion and that we will not have to wait long before my two addresses are supplanted by more detailed accounts.
The history of a field is to a large extent the biography of its leading figures, and biographical studies are thus an important genre within the history of scholarship. But here also there is little to point to for analytical bibliography, aside from reminiscences and memorial tributes. I do, however, wish to call attention to three essays, by Paul Needham, Fredson Bowers, and David L. Vander Meulen, that exemplify the qualities I am calling for. Needham's 1986 Hanes Lecture, The Bradshaw Method, examines Henry Bradshaw's contribution to the analysis and recording of the structure of books, reinforcing the often-expressed view that Bradshaw
Another essay that demonstrates the same point is Bowers's paper on "McKerrow's Editorial Principles for Shakespeare Reconsidered" (Shakespeare Quarterly, 6 [1955], 309-324). Although not primarily biographical, this essay analyzes McKerrow's motivations and the scholarly milieu in which his ideas were formed: "Any major work like Prolegomena," Bowers says, "has behind it a certain climate of thinking, a characteristic point of view which stems from the intellectual position held by its author" (p. 314). Bowers concludes that McKerrow's tendency to restrict the role of editorial judgment (in his Prolegomena for the Oxford Shakespeare [1939]) was a reaction against what he deemed the excessive liberties taken by nineteenth-century editors and what he saw as abuses of the New Bibliography by J. Dover Wilson. One gains from the essay both an understanding of the origins and evolution of McKerrow's ideas and a point of view regarding proper editorial procedure and its relation to analytical bibliography. The value of the piece as biography grows directly out of the extended thought Bowers had given to editorial matters.
A third exemplary piece also deals with a single important work but has a somewhat different focus: Vander Meulen's "The History and Future of Bowers's Principles" (PBSA, 79 [1985], 197-219) traces the reception of Bowers's Principles of Bibliographical Description (1949)
If I may refer again to my own work, I should like to comment on one further kind of essay that has not been much practiced. In 1986 I contributed to A Companion to Melville Studies (edited by John Bryant) an essay called "Melville and the World of Books" (pp. 781-835), which I conceived of differently from the usual survey of research. I wanted not only to pay some attention to the history of bibliographical work on Melville but, by including all kinds of research and writing that could be called bibliographical, to show the interrelatedness of all the work. The essay therefore takes up the researches on Melville's book-buying and reading and on the original and subsequent publication and reception of his writings, the efforts to record all the printings of his work and all the commentary on it, and the studies and editions aimed at establishing texts of his works. These various investigations, taken together, deal with Melville's relation to the world of handwritten and printed matter, to the segment of human experience involving the attempt to transmit verbal statements in physical form. Each of these studies contributes, in greater or lesser degree, to an understanding of the cycle that leads from the formation of Melville's ideas under the influence of other writers to the influence of his writings on later individuals who put their thoughts on paper. The never-ending process of returning to documents of the past for the stimulation that produces new insights, to be recorded in their turn in new documents, cannot be effectively studied without the point of view that analytical bibliography affords, for ideas are affected at every step of the way by the physical means of their transmission. As I said in the Melville essay, "It matters what editions, and what copies, of Shakespeare and Rabelais, of Thomas Beale and William Scoresby, Melville read, just as it matters what copies of what editions of his own writings were read by various commentators. The line connecting a copy of a book Melville read to the expropriation or adaptation of its text in one of his own works, and then from a copy of an edition of that work to the interpretation of its text by a critic who read that copy, is a direct one, if only it can be discerned" (pp. 782-783). The line can be extended further, for it obviously matters what copy of what edition of a critic's work is read by a later reader: we need to understand that "all printed
Surveys of the bibliographical scholarship in particular fields, like surveys of other kinds of scholarship, are a standard scholarly genre, and in a sense they are all examples of the study of bibliographical history. But those that are little more than lists in essay form may be regarded as bearing the same relation to historical writing that checklists bear to descriptive bibliographies. What turns a survey of previous work into a history of scholarship, however, is not so much the extent of the commentary (which is a function of the scale of the piece) but the point of view imbuing the whole. Whether one's subject is the bibliographical work of all kinds on a given topic or the bibliographical work of a single kind on all topics, one will have little insight into the subject without a background of thinking about the transmission of works made of words. Accounts of bibliographical history, like other historical writings, can be only as penetrating as the viewpoints that shape them.
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