DURING A FORTY-YEAR PERIOD, FROM
1966 THROUGH 2006,
I published a series of essays
covering every aspect of de-
scriptive bibliography. Taken together, these essays
form
a comprehensive treatise on the subject. Although this con-
solidated work
significantly revises Fredson Bowers's
Principles of Biblio-
graphical Description
(1949) and stands on its own, I regard it not simply as
a replacement
for the Principles but as a companion piece to that
book.
After all, a classic can never be entirely superseded, and the Principles
will always be worth reading for many specific
passages and for the at-
titude it displays: every detail is a reflection of the
view that descriptive
bibliography is a form of historical scholarship. No one can
come away
from the book without understanding that descriptive bibliography is
not
just a guide to the identification of first editions (though it serves
that
purpose) but is rather a history of the production and publication of
the
books taken up and thus a contribution to the broader annals of printing
and
publishing.
Nevertheless, any work from as long ago as 1949 is likely to
require
some adjustments, and my essays provide a rethinking and redefinition
of
some basic concepts, particularly ideal copy, issue,
state, and format. I have
also proposed a simpler and
more logical system for noting inserted leaves
in collation formulas and have
offered more detailed suggestions for de-
scribing paper, type, non-letterpress
material, and publishers' bindings.
Two matters barely commented on by Bowers are
given extensive discus-
sion in two of my essays: the incorporation of the results
of bibliographical
analysis (that is, analysis of typesetting and presswork) into a
descriptive
bibliography, and the considerations involved in the overall
organization
of a bibliography (along with the numbering of its entries and the
record-
ing of copies examined). I have tried throughout to express, more
fully
than he did, the rationale lying behind the inclusion of every element
in
a description and the manner of presenting such features. (My
detailed
criticisms of certain proposals, both by him and by others, are meant
to
illustrate these rationales in practice.)
Another important difference between Bowers's and my
treatments
is that he segregates his discussions of fifteenth-, eighteenth-,
and
nineteenth-/ twentieth-century books into three separate (and
relatively
short) sections, whereas my organization (according to the elements in
a
description) reflects the view that basic principles and procedures apply
to
all periods, regardless of the changing book-production details that have
to
be reported. His emphasis on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century books
emerged from
his own experience at the time (he later became thoroughly
acquainted with
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century books), but it leaves
the Principles somewhat unbalanced. A prominent feature of his work is
the
fifty-eight-page treatment of the formulary notation for recording a
book's
structure, which is impressive in the quantity and range of situ-
ations that it
cites. This full account, however, has caused many people
to think of the collation
formula as complex and difficult, and my own
discussion of it emphasizes how very
simple it is. (Some books do have a
complex structure, and analyzing it may be
difficult; but once that result
has been achieved, constructing the formula to
represent it is straight-
forward.) Despite the differences between Bowers's and my guides to the
subject, I hope that mine is
like his in showing how descriptive bibliogra-
phy is an essential pursuit of
scholarship in the humanities.
My essays do not call for revision, in the sense that I still believe in
the
approach and suggestions expressed in each one. But a considerable
amount of work
has been done in this field since most of the essays were
written, and a knowledge
of that work would usefully supplement the essays.
Accordingly, I am gathering here
some notes on recent activity—"recent"
referring, for each topic, to anything
published in the years since my essay
on that topic first appeared. These notes are
not meant to be comprehensive
surveys but only accounts of the publications that I
consider most worth dis-
cussing or mentioning. Sometimes I have to disagree with
points that have
been made, and at other times I am glad to welcome ideas that are
valuable
additions to what I wrote. (Further items through 2002 can be
found in the
2002 revision of my Introduction to
Bibliography: Seminar Syllabus, available as
a Book Arts Press paperback and
on the Rare Book School website.)
My notes below are grouped under fourteen headings. First come
five dealing with
general matters: introduction to the field and its history
(pp. 3–11); its relation
to library cataloguing (pp. 11–14); the concept
of ideal copy
(pp. 15–21); the meanings of edition, impression, issue,
and
state (pp. 21–25); and tolerances in reporting details
and the necessary
equipment for doing so (pp. 25–27). The remaining nine cover
more
specific subjects: quasi-facsimile transcription of title pages and other
text
(pp. 27–29); collations of gatherings, pages, non-letterpress
insertions,
and contents (pp. 29–34); formal (pp. 35–37); paper (pp. 37–50;
typog-
raphy and layout (pp. 50–58); typesetting and presswork (pp. 58–64);
non-letterpress material (pp. 64–69); publishers' bindings, endpapers,
and
jackets (pp. 69–89: color, pp. 71–74; patterns, pp. 75–88; jackets,
pp. 88–89); and
overall arrangement, including the list of examined cop-
ies (pp. 89–93). Although
the designation of format often precedes the
collation of gatherings, this order
otherwise approximates the sequence
conventionally followed in a description.
