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Notes
I would like to thank the Newberry Library and the South Central Modern Language Association for supporting this project through a Newberry Library Short-Term Resident Fellowship.
Donald Bond, "The First Printing of the Spectator," Modern Philology 47 (1949 — 50): 164 — 177; "The Text of the Spectator," SB 5 (1952 — 53): 109 — 128; William B. Todd, "A Bibliographical Account of The Gentleman's Magazine, 1731 — 1754," SB 18 (1965): 81 — 93; "The Printing of Eighteenth-Century Periodicals with Notes on The Examiner and the World," The Library 5th ser. 10 (1955): 49 — 54.
The most important bibliographies of Meredith are Maurice Buxton Forman's Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of George Meredith (1922) supplemented by Meredithiana (1924), and Michael Collie's George Meredith: A Bibliography (1974).
I designate individually published components of a periodical run by the term "number" rather than "issue" to avoid confusion with the bibliographical concept of issue.
An early example of this tendency is Michael Sadleir's Trollope: A Bibliography (1928), in which the Christmas Numbers of the Masonic Magazine (1878), Good Words (1882), and Life (1882) are described in a section titled "Books (Including Annuals) Partially Written By Anthony Trollope." In the headnote to this section, Sadleir explains that the annuals "rank apart from ordinary periodical issues" because they "were issued as self-contained and independent publications," and he also notes that Trollope's contributions were not published elsewhere. Also included is a section devoted to "Saint Paul's Under Trollope's Editorship," in which each installment is briefly described. A third section, "Contributions (Not Reprinted) To Periodicals," is a brief enumerative listing in chronological order.
There is no major index for nineteenth-century American periodicals comparable to the Wellesley Index; in addition to Poole's and the Nineteenth-Century Reader's Guide, American periodicals are indexed in the Index to Early American Periodicals to 1850 (340 magazines; 1964), and in Daniel Wells, The Literary Index to American Magazines, 1815 — 1865 (25 magazines; 1980) and Jayne Kribb's An Annotated Bibliography of American Literary Periodicals, 1741 — 1850 (1977), which lists authors published in each periodical or titles of significant literary pieces or essays. Other important sources for American periodicals are G. T. Tanselle's Guide to the Study of United States Imprints (1971), Frank Luther Mott's A History of American Magazines (1930 — 68) and Edward Chielens's The Literary Journal in America to 1900: A Guide to Information Sources (1975) and American Literary Magazines: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (1986).
Of special concern is the incomplete indexing of internationally published periodicals, since differences in the content of American issues of British periodicals (and British issues of American periodicals) go unrecorded in the major indexes.
In Victorian Periodicals: A Guide to Research, ed. J. Don Vann and Rosemary Van Arsdel (1978), 21 — 51.
As G. T. Tanselle explains in "Descriptive Bibliography and Library Cataloguing," SB 30 (1977): 1 — 56, the goal of descriptive cataloguing differs from that of descriptive bibliography primarily because the goal of cataloguing is to describe an individual copy of a book, while that of descriptive bibliography is to establish ideal copy (47). Also, library cataloguing is more likely to be oriented towards an account of the intellectual content of the item described, including physical details only insofar as they "help characterize the content" (71), whereas descriptive bibliography is oriented towards an account of the item as a physical object, and is interested in physical details for their own sake. For this reason the methods that have been developed for the purposes of library cataloguing of periodicals are not necessarily suitable for the descriptive bibliographer; however, the discussions of the nature and special features of periodicals are valuable, as is the establishment of specialized terminology to describe those features. The only book length discussion of library cataloguing and citation of periodicals is Paul E. Vesenyi's An Introduction to Periodical Bibliography (1974), which unfortunately is focused almost entirely upon bibliographic control of the contents of periodicals and is thus of little value to descriptive bibliographers.
In Investigating Victorian Journalism, ed. Laurel Brake, Aled Jones and Lionel Madden (1990), 19 — 32.
See Scott Bennett, "The Golden Stain of Time: Preserving Victorian Periodicals," in Investigating Victorian Journalism, 166 — 183.
See "A Sample Bibliographical Description, With Commentary" (SB 40 [1987]: 1 — 30): "What I am particularly concerned to demonstrate is that descriptive bibliography is a form of biographical, and thus historical, scholarship" (2); and also "A Description of Descriptive Bibliography" (SB 45 [1992]: 1 — 30), especially footnote 50.
I have discussed this point in "A Bibliographical Approach to Victorian Publishing," in Literature in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-Century British Publishing and Reading Practices, ed. John O. Jordan and Robert L. Patton (1995), 269 — 288.
Household Words: A Weekly Journal, 1850 — 1859, conducted by Charles Dickens: Table of Contents, List of Contributors, and Their Contributions, based on the Household Words Office Book . . . (1973): 1 — 50.
Lohrli does not seem to realize that several of the "variant readings" she reports probably derive from damage to standing type or to plates, as when, on the last page of No. 384, the word "London" in the imprint "is, in some printings, followed by a colon; in other printings, not" (45), or when "In one printing of No. 25 . . . the notation reads VOL. I.; in another printing, merely VOL." (45). Type damage in itself does not offer evidence of more than one "printing"; on the other hand, the fact that "The non-textual material set below the double rule that encloses the text (that is, the publisher-printer imprint and the notation of volume and number) seems in some copies to have been a part of the stereotyped plate, in other copies, not" (45) points to multiple impressions or issues, as do some of Lohrli's other comments (for example, "In some printings of No. 19, mention of Bradbury & Evans is substituted by the notation 'Published every Saturday' and a statement of the price and issuance in monthly parts" [45]).
See Faxon's "Magazine Perplexities. I. The Strand; its English and American Editions," Bulletin of Bibliography 1.8 (January 1899): 122 — 123.
The most recent approved revision of the American National Standard for Periodicals was published in 1977 by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI), now known as the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). Several draft revisions of the standard have since appeared under the same title and classification number (Z39.1), the most recent in 1990. The American National Standard for Periodicals "recommends to editors and publishers of periodicals the details of format and arrangement needed to provide effectively the bibliographic information that will enable scholars, librarians, documentalists, and subscription agencies to identify periodicals and their component parts accurately and thus facilitate their use" (9). While the American National Standard for Periodicals is of greater value for bibliographers of twentieth-century periodicals, the standard can serve to remind all bibliographers that what should appear often does not, especially in earlier publications.
Much discussion has already taken place regarding the potential of hypermedia for critical editions, but little consideration has been given to the great boon that hypermedia might be for descriptive bibliographers. Two collections of essays edited by Paul Delany and George P. Landow, Hypermedia and Literary Studies (1991) and The Digital Word: Text-Based Computing in the Humanities (1993) are useful introductions to the actual and potential uses of emerging technology; discussions of the role of computer technology in editing include Peter Shillingsberg's Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age: Theory and Practice (1986) and recent article "Polymorphic, Polysemic, Protean, Reliable, Electronic Texts" in Palimpsest: Editorial Theory in the Humanities, ed. George Bornstein and Ralph Williams (1993), and Peter M. W. Robinson's "Redefining Critical Editions" in The Digital Word, 271 — 291.
See G. T. Tanselle, "Tolerances in Bibliographical Description," The Library 5th ser. 23 (March 1968): 1 — 12.
I have made trial descriptions of the periodical installments or volumes listed below (active aggregation is termed "volume issue"; other aggregations are termed "bound volume"): Periodicals examined in the Newberry Library: Banter (volume issue 1867; shelfmark fY 194.072); Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (bound volumes 53 [Jan. — June 1843] and 54 [July — Dec. 1843], A 51.14; also US edition, volume issue 53 and 54, fA 51.141); The Broadway (bound volume [Sept. 1867 — Aug. 1868], A 51.168); Chapman's Weekly Magazine (bound volume no. 1 — 7 [Sept. 28, 1843 — Nov. 9, 1843], A51.196); Dark Blue (bound volume 1 no. 1 — 6 [March 1871 — August 1871], A 51.26); The Dome (volume 1 no. 5, os, 1898; bound volume 1 ns no. 1 — 3 [Oct. 1898 — Dec. 1898], A 51.265); Domestic Journal and Home Miscellany (bound volume 1 [July 30 — Dec. 15, 1849], A 51.267); Once a Week (bound volume 1 no. 1 — 26 [July — Dec. 1859], A 51.695; The Victoria Magazine (volume 1 no. 1 [May 1, 1863], A 51.001); The Woman's World (bound volumes [1888, 1889]; fA 51.9543). Periodicals examined in Northwestern University library: Broadway (bound volume 1 [Sept. 1867 — Aug. 1868], O51.B8635); Macmillans (bound volume 43 [Nov. 1880 — April 1881]); New Quarterly Magazine (bound volumes 7 [Oct. 1876 — Jan. 1877] and ns 2 [July and Oct. 1879], O51.N5575). Periodicals examined at Texas A & M University library: Illustrated London News (bound volume 70 [Jan. — June 1877]); Fortnightly Review (bound volume 21 ns [Jan. — June 1877]); Edinburgh Review (volume 145 [Jan. — April 1877]).
"Prolegomenon to Serials Bibliography: A Report to the Society," Victorian Periodicals Review 12.1 (1979): 3 — 15; quotation from 7.
The following description of a show-card for The Sunday at Home from the British and Colonial Printer and Stationer ("The Sunday at Home. — New Volume," No. 10, Volume 2 [December 1, 1879]: 875 — 876) provides a rare description of this form of advertising: "A handsomer show-card than the one issued by this well-known magazine has never been seen. The new volume is announced as just ready, and if its contents be on a par with the exceedingly well-executed card or coloured poster which now excites our admiration, the new volume will indeed be a treat. "There are four lithographic illustrations upon the card we allude to, emblematic of the four seasons of the year. The subjects of each are well-known English birds, really very beautifully drawn and coloured. "An appropriate verse accompanies each picture, and the whole display reflects the greatest possible credit upon Messrs. Riddle and Couchman, the artists, and the publishers of the well-known and highly-esteemed magazine. . . ."
The similar problem posed by composite books is discussed in G. T. Tanselle, "The Description of Non-Letterpress Material in Books," SB 35 (1982): 1 — 42.
An excellent discussion of the rationale for title-page transcription is G. T. Tanselle's "Title-Page Transcription and Signature Collation," SB 38 (1985): 45 — 81.
The term "masthead" is defined for nineteenth-century periodicals in the Manual for the Bibliographical Description of Serials as "the title and publication data area above the columns of a newspaper or periodical"; information included in the masthead usually includes "time of publication and designations of editions, editorial address (which may differ from the publishing address of the colophon), possibly name of editor, advertisement or subscription rates, and the like" (25). Other definitions of the term "masthead," especially those not based on nineteenth-century works, do not specify its location or insist, as the Manual does, on its connection with a periodical's or newspaper's editorial pages. To spare confusion, the term "masthead" should probably only be used in the more general sense, to refer to that place in the periodical reserved for a statement regarding the publisher, sponsoring organization (if any), editorial personnel, frequency of issue, etc, regardless of where such a statement is placed. A heading that includes the title and other information may be termed a "masthead" as long as more detailed publishing information is not offered elsewhere in the periodical, in which case it would make sense to refer to the heading by a term such as "head-title."
"Christmas Numbers," Printing Times 1 (January 1 1873): 11. Frank Luther Mott's A History of American Magazines 1865 — 1885 (1938) reports similar cases of "advertisements . . . passed off as regular reading matter" in postbellum American magazines (11).
See Scott Bennett, "The Golden Stain of Time: Preserving Victorian Periodicals," in Investigating Victorian Journalism, 166 — 183.
Tanselle's "The Bibliographical Description of Paper" includes a short list of methods of testing the physical properties of paper and a short discussion of the use of the Centroid Color Chart to identify paper colors, but does not discuss the problems posed by acidic paper. The Centroid Chart, and the problem of color specification in general, are discussed in Tanselle's "A System of Color Identification for Bibliographical Description," SB 20 (1967): 203 — 234.
Plates are treated in some detail in Tanselle's "The Description of Non-Letterpress Material in Books," SB 35 (1982): 1 — 42.
The (sometimes erratic) provision of volume title-pages and indexes was a sore point for librarians and other subscribers. The topic is mentioned several times in the Bulletin of Bibliography, with the complaint that periodicals had abandoned the former practice of supplying titles and indexes as a matter of course. In January 1903 the Bulletin threatened to "publish as a 'black list' the titles of those American and English periodicals, which publish (a) no title and index, (b) index but no title, (c) title but no index, (d) title or index, or both, separately, and supply them only when specially requested; (e) title or index, or both, separately, and inclosed loose, either in last number of the volume or some subsequent number" ("The Irregular Issue of Title-Pages and Indexes, in Periodicals," Bulletin of Bibliography 3.4 [January 1903]: 1).
Four copies of volume 1, numbers 1 — 12, of The Broadway (1867 — 1868) have been inspected. While examination of the entire first volume allows number 6 to be placed in its immediate context, ideally some subsequent numbers or volumes would also have been consulted.
A full page advertisement for Number 1 of The Broadway appeared in The Athenaeum No. 2076 (August 10, 1867), 189.
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