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Note on Sources
The location of extant records of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia reflects basic elements in the Society's structure over its first half century. The most extensive documentation for the early decades occurs in the files of President Linton Massey and Secretary- Treasurer John Cook Wyllie. Massey's relevant papers were transferred to the Society's office upon his death; Wyllie's went as part of the immense accumulation of the University Librarian to the University Archives, now part of the Special Collections Department of the library, where they are classified under the general heading RG-12/1. Because all Society business was brought to the attention of Massey, his files of copied and original correspondence are often the most complete that exist for the early years. Disparate papers from Fredson Bowers are collected in Special Collections under Archives grouping RG-21/30 and Manuscripts classification 5691. The Archives in Special Collections also include a segregated group of Society materials under the designation RG-24/2. Of most significance here are financial records from 1953 through 1958 and materials relating to the preparation of Studies in Bibliography from 1965 through 1972, or approximately the years L. A. Beaurline helped Bowers with the journal. Also of interest in these files are correspondence about the first two student book collecting contests and the entries from the first printers' contest. Shelved with rare books in Special Collections is a lengthy run of Society publications under the call number Z1008.V54. The Society's own archives achieved greater coherence once the organization obtained separate space in Alderman Library and as the role of Executive Secretary developed. Existing records of the past twenty-five years, as well as some materials such as ledger books from before then, are now stored in the Society office.
On the tenth anniversary of the Society, Linton Massey wittily summarized its history in "Bibliographia Virginiana or Ledgerdemania," Virginia Librarian, 2.4 (January 1956), 41-42. William H. Runge provided a convenient one- page description in volume 2 of the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, ed. Allen Kent and Harold Lancour (1969), p. 406. The activities and personages of the Society have often received attention in the University's student newspaper Cavalier Daily, in the Charlottesville Daily Progress, in the University's Alumni News magazine, and in Chapter and Verse, the publication of the Associates of the University of Virginia Library. The Alumni News of June 1963, for instance, discusses the Cockescraw Press (pp. 10-11, 25), and in Chapter and Verse 4 (February 1976) Clinton Sisson traces its reincarnation as the Alderman Press (pp. 7- 9). One of the most important environments from which the Society emerged is described by Harry Clemons in The University of Virginia Library 1825-1900: Story of a Jefferson Foundation (1954), an account that includes Wyllie's early connections with the library.
The resolution that Fredson Bowers prepared and read before the University faculty in memory of Linton Massey appeared in Chapter and Verse 3 (February 1975), 4-8. A photograph of Massey appeared as the frontispiece in Studies in Bibliography 28 (1975), and a biographical account of him by Edmund Berkeley, Jr., is forthcoming in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. The DLB also contains Matthew J. Bruccoli's article (with photographs) on John Cook Wyllie (vol. 140, American Book-Collectors and Bibliographers, First Series, ed. Joseph Rosenblum, 1994, pp. 327-341). G. Thomas Tanselle's The Life and Work of Fredson Bowers, including a chronology and a checklist of Bowers's writings by Martin C. Battestin, was published by the Society in 1993. It reprints, with corrections and an added index, material that first appeared in volume 46 (1993) of SB, and includes a portrait of Bowers. Chalmers Gemmill's history of his department, Pharmacology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine (1966), contains a brief sketch and a picture of this first president of the Society. The career of its third president is summarized by Anne Freudenberg in "Atcheson Laughlin Hench," Chapter and Verse 2 (1974), 27, and by Edward A. Stephenson in "Atcheson Laughlin Hench," American Speech 50.3-4 (Fall-Winter 1975), 291-292. On the occasion of his retirement from the University the Cockescraw Press produced a list of his writings: Atcheson Laughlin Hench: A Check List, Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-one--Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-two (1962).
I am indebted to the following individuals, each of whom has provided essential help in the course of my work: Julius P. Barclay, Martin C. and Ruthe R. Battestin, Mary Beaurline, Edmund Berkeley, Jr., Fredson T. Bowers, Jr., Matthew J. Bruccoli, Betty Cauthen, L. Gayle Cooper, Roger Deane, Susan Foard, Anne Freudenberg, Susanne R. Glass, Vesta Gordon, Gillian Kyles, Nancy Mills, Pauline Page, Michael F. Plunkett, Frederick Ribble, George Riser, William H. Runge, David Seaman, Alexander and Charlene M. Sedgwick, Clinton Sisson, Barbara Smith, Mrs. Hugh Spencer, Bill Sublette, G. Thomas Tanselle, Karin Wittenborg, and the staff of the Special Collections Department of the University of Virginia Library. A number of others must be singled out with gratitude for special contributions: Arthur Stocker, Kendon Stubbs, and especially Mrs. John Cook Wyllie, for their reminiscences and their insights into Society history; Edgar Shannon, C. E. Moran, Jr., and Janet Anderson, for information about the University of Virginia Press and the University Press of Virginia; Paul Collinge, who as proprietor of Heartwood Books was crucial to preparation of the list documenting the central activity of the Society, its publishing; Elizabeth Lynch, for her creativity and energy in ferreting out new sources of information; Doris Vander Meulen, who provided early direction with her help in extracting meaning from Society records; and Penelope F. Weiss, for her knowledge of Charlottesville life and assistance with Society files. The history of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia is the story of many people, both in its living and in its telling.
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