10 Lauriston Road, Wimbledon.—The Bibliographical Society thank him for his List of English Plays, and he has been elected a member of Council.
British Museum.—Arranges to consult McKerrow and Greg about choosing books for the Museum from the Huth Collection, and invites McKerrow to subscribe to a publication in honour of G. F. Warner.
(With envelope.)
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Transcript
British Museum
- Jany 1911
Dear McKerrow,
I’ve got Fortescue’s leave to consult you & Greg abt one or two difficulties as to the (conditional) choice of books for the B.M. from the Huth Collection {1}—that is if you will suffer yourself to be consulted. Greg will look in here tomorrow (Saty) afternoon to see the books we have got up. If you can come in then so much the better, but if you can’t I’ll be glad to see you any day. It is more convenient however in† days other than Saturday to take you into Fortescue’s room (where the books are) between 1∙30 & 2∙30 than at other times.
2. Are you a lover of Warner or of MSS. If so, you may like to join a game which is on foot to reproduce the miniatures (occupations of the months) from a jolly Flemish MS. of which he is fond in his (Warner’s) {2} honour. He leaves in October & as it will take some time to get the thing done a start is being made. A copy of the book will be presented to each subscriber of a guinea, & I think he will get good value for his money!
Please regard both parts of this letter as confidential.
Yours ever,
A W Pollard
[Direction on envelope:] R. B. McKerrow Esq. | 4 Phoenix Lodge Mansions | Brook Green | Hammersmith | W.
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The envelope was postmarked at London, W.C., at 7.30 p.m. on 20 January 1911. The number ‘104357’ has been marked on the back in pencil.
{1} The book-collector Alfred Henry Huth (1850–1910) directed by his will that if at any time his library should be sold the Trustees of the British Museum should be allowed to choose fifty volumes from it. The principal conditions were that the Trustees should not select a better copy of any volume already in the Museum except by way of exchange, every copy so exchanged being counted as one of the fifty; that the volumes selected should be marked with the words ‘Huth Bequest’; and that the Trustees should print a separate catalogue of them. See the Catalogue of the Fifty Manuscripts and Printed Books bequeathed to the British Museum by Alfred H. Huth (1912), which contains an introduction by Pollard.
{2} ‘Warner’s’ was added above ‘his’. The brackets have been supplied.
† Sic.
Transcript
P. 76 n. 1.
Another example of the use of ‘w’ as a signature is to be found in A. Fitzherbert’s “Graunde Abridgement” 1565, Vol. II pt. 2.
P. 81.
I was interested in your remarks in regard to the abbreviated form of the title sometimes found printed on a line with the signature because I had observed the use of this device in some of the books printed by Wynkyn de Worde. Recently I got together the books which we have in the Chapin Library from his press. I found sixteen originals and eight facsimiles. Of these, eighteen (13 originals and 5 facsimiles) were printed during a period which extends from c. 1509-c. 1530, and of the 18, fifteen had “title-signs” or “signature-titles.” This relatively high percentage may be due to the fact that 10 of the 18 are school-books (8 Whittington and 2 Stanbridge) and that de Worde found it convenient to use this method of identifying the sheets of that particular class of book which he published in such a bewildering number. However, the most interesting example that I found was in a volume of quite a different type viz. (S.T.C. No. 23877) his 1521 volume of “Ihesus: The floure of the commaundementes of god,” a folio in sixes, which has the title-sign “The.[a sign resembling a six-petalled flower].”
That this device was used to aid the binders is evident from the fact that in the majority of cases the title-sign appears only on the first leaf of the single sheet quires and on the first and third leaves only of the six or eight leaf quires.
In two cases (really one for they were different editions of the same Whittington tract, S.T.C. Nos. 25533 and 25536) the title-signs were altered to accord with the contents in the manner of subject-headings.
(One of the Whittington tracts, a variant of S.T.C. No. 25484 dated 5 September 1522, has on both sides of the last leaf an earlier impression of de Worde’s device, No. 46β, than you have noted in your “Printers’ and Publishers’ Devices” p. 17).
None of the six books from de Worde’s press which we have printed either before or after the period mentioned above have title-signs, although one of them, a copy of M. T. Cicero’s “The thre bookes of Tullyes offyces” 30 Sept. 1534, belongs to the series of small 8vo. school texts which de Worde issued about that time and which would seem to be particularly suited for such a practice.
The source of the name “title-sign” or “signature-title” is not known to me though I have an impression that I have seen it in Herbert. Until I read your comment I believed it was in current usage.
P. 82.
In regard to the purpose of catchwords. Before I even knew what the name of this device was, from seeing it used in Everyman Library reprints, etc., I thought that it was provided as an aid to the reader that he might follow through, without pausing, while turning pages or passing from the foot of one page to the top of the next. On the face of it this seems rather more altruistic than is compatible with the use of so many of the eye-straining fonts of type of the 15th and 16th centuries and I have little evidence to adduce in support of it. However, the use of catchwords at the bottom of each column (2 columns to the page) in Berthelet’s 1532 edition of Gower’s “Confessio Amantis” seems a case in point. (I admit it also appears to strengthen the argument that this device is a guide “to the printer in imposing the pages”). Of the various usages which you have noted on p. 84, three of them, b, c (an English example of this is Pynson’s “Berner’s Froissart” PTs. III-IV (to S, with exceptions) 1525), and d, the first, b, obviously can be used to support no other thesis than the one you have advanced on p. 82, but c and d, as you noted in the case of the latter, are aids to the binder rather than the printer. The three other varieties you have listed there might be twisted to support the theory which I have here set forth largely because I cannot seem to get rid of the feeling that no matter what purpose the compositor had the device does serve as an aid to the reader. (An earlier example of ‘a’ than you have noted is Goodman’s “How superior powers, etc.” Geneva, J. Crespin, 1558).
P. 140.
Having recently read A. W. Reed’s “Early Tudor Drama” I was somewhat surprised that you did not refer to his chapter (VII), entitled “Notes on the Regulation of the Book Trade before the Proclamation of 1538,” which I had found very enlightening on the transfer of the authority from ecclesiastical to civil jurisdiction before 1538 when Pollard takes it up.
P. 155 ff.
In your treatment of unusual collocations you do not take up the matter of regularly alternating sequences of signatures. This practice while more common I believe in continental printing is not unknown in English books especially those produced in the first half of the sixteenth century. For example of the group of fifteen books with title-signs mentioned above from de Worde’s press I find that nine of them have either double or triple sequences.
The only example of this practice other than in legal printing, particularly year-books and statute-books, after 1550 that I have noted is Gascoigne’s “Droomme of Doomes day”, 1576 in which quires H-O are printed in alternating eights and fours.
In recording such sequences I have followed the formula set forthe by Prof. Pollard in the Introduction of the “Catalogue of XVthe Century Books in the B.M.” Pt. I p. XIX.
Do you know of any other explanation for this practice than that which Prof. Pollard suggests, namely, that it might serve to make the binding more flexible (see Trans. Bibl. Soc. VIII (1927) p. 132)? This seems to me very reasonable except that it does not explain the practice when applied to slender volumes of just a few quires. Or does it?
P. 229. Coryate. Crambe 1611.
The Chapin copy is in original gilt vellum but with green morocco label of recent date on back. It appears to have been issued first unbound and stabbed. It also has binders’ marks in pencil on contiguous leaves, Moreover, though the end-papers and flyleaves appear to be of early paper one of them has some marks in pencil which have been cropt. It has therefore probably been resewn. This may be the Robert Samuel Turner copy sold at Sotheby’s 18 June 1888 but that is suggested only because no other copy in vellum in listed in B.P.C. up to 1919 at which time this copy had been purchased for the Chapin Library.
In regard to the collation of the Capell copy. From the description in Dr. Greg’s catalogue it appears to me at least possible, that a portion of that copy consists of sheets from the Crudities, 1611, viz. signatures a-b4 (repeated); c-g8; h-l4. {1}
In the Chapin copy the abnormal signature D consists of two quarto sheets, sewn between the 2nd and third leaves of each sheet and signed as you have described. As you suggest it appears that the whole of “D” must have been reprinted.
Sheet H would seem to be of a later issue than the rest of the work for it contains an address protesting against two insults which Coryate (somewhat quixotically) singles out in the pirated (?) Odcombian Banquet, 1611. The O.B., however, mentions the Crambe on the title-page and one is led to assume that some copies of the Crambe must have been in circulation before the O.B. was published and that the protest was then appended to the unsold copies of the Crambe. The format adds weight to such a conjecture, G4 being a blank.
There are two other matters concerning which I should like to be enlightened. The first of these is in regard to the short-titles sometimes found printed perpendicularly on an otherwise blank leaf. The only examples of this that I have met with are:
Browne, Sir Thomas. Hydrotaphia, 1658. recto [O8] {2}
Hookes, Nathaniel. Amanda, 1653; on leaf preceding engraved frontispiece.
Billingsley, Nicholas. Brachymartyrologia, 1657, [P4]? {2}
(This leaf is lacking in Chapin copy. Corser and Hazlitt state that it has “only the title on it,” thought they do not say in what position it is printed.)
These books were all printed within a few years of each other. Were these titles intended to be cut out and pasted on spines in the same manner as the extra paper labels now inserted in some books or as in the case of the horn “window” bindings of the 16th century?
The other matter is in regard to the rules frequently found immediately over imprint dates when these are printed in roman numerals. This practice is almost universal in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Mr. Edmonds of the Huntington Library first called my attention to it. He thought that the custom would not have become so widespread if it had no significance.
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Typed, except the flower sign, the β, and some inverted commas. The square brackets round signatures are original. The references to the Chapin Library (at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts) suggest that the writer of these unsigned notes was W. A. Jackson, who was a cataloguing assistant there from 1927 to 1930. The notes, on four leaves numbered from 1 to 4, are evidently complete; but they may have been accompanied by a letter.
{1} The numbers in these signatures are superscript in the original.
{2} The number in the signature is subscript in the original.
C/o E.M.C., P.O. Urambo, via Tabora T.T., British East Africa.—Challenges an inference in The Editorial Problem in Shakespeare.
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Transcript
c/o. E.M.C. | P.O. URAMBO. | via Tabora. T.T. | Brit. East Africa.
22/6/49
Dr. W. W. Greg.
Standlands. Petworth. Sussex. England.
Dear Sir,
Q4 Richard II: 2nd issue 1608.
May I respectfully suggest with defference† to yourself as the most distinguished bibliographer of the present day that, possibly, there might be an error in the view that “of” in the title-page of Q4 Richard II—2nd issue 1608—provides prima facie evidence that the ‘deposition’ scene is piratical—your Ed. Prob. in Sh. O.U.P. 1942 p. xlii, footnote (i).
It appears to me, Sir, that this word “of” cannot rightly be explained in (shall we say) Windsorian parlance. Similar uses of this word, which allow ‘in’, ‘at’, ‘from’ etc., occur in (all F):—
M. of V.—V. i. 297 [Added by Greg: ‘= regarding’]
All’s Well.—I. i. 7 [Added by Greg: ‘= in’] also IV. ii. 65 [Added by Greg: ‘= in’] & IV. iii. 336 [Added by Greg: ‘= of or by’]
Lear.—I. v. 23 [corrected to ‘22’ by Greg, who has added ‘= on’]
to give three examples only.
There are, according to my reckoning, three times as many again, each showing a variation in the use of the word “of”. Similarly, perhaps, Q4 Richard II. 2nd issue. {1}
I do not here dispute the opinion that the ‘deposition’ passages are, or may be, unaccredited: I venture to suggest only that, on quite strictly bibliographical grounds, there appears to be no evidence to support the belief that this Quarto is thus stigmatized by deliberate piratical infiltration.
If it would not be unseemly for you to reply with a view to helping me, in however small a way, in trying to clear up this particular problem, I should, indeed, be greatly obliged to you.
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Incidentally, although I am quite satisfied that I have correctly answered the theory of ‘bad’ and ‘good’ Quartos, I am not sure that the Pavier-Jaggard Quartos, although plainly the “stolne, and surreptitious copies”, are without both bibliographical and textual merit. It is a very, very difficult problem. Where it may lead, I dare not think. I wish Pollard were here.
I am in the Holy Study
[Signed:] K B Danks
K. B. DANKS
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The printed address at the head—Welcombe Enclosure, P.O. Songhor, Kenya Colony—has been struck through. In the original some pairs of words are run together, e.g. ‘ofthe’, ‘away’, ‘Iam’. ‘p. xlii’ (the page of the note referred to by Danks) has been written at the head in pencil.
† Sic.
Taylor Institution, Oxford.—Refers to aspects of his own work (on Boswell’s Life of Johnson), and comments on Crane and Kaye’s Census of British Newspapers and Periodicals and McKerrow’s Introduction to Bibliography.
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Transcript
Taylor Institution, Oxford
7 Feb. 28.
Dear McKerrow (if you will pardon the familiarity).
I am glad you agree. I shall be able to show that Johnson suggested the publication of the Reliques to Percy some time before Shenstone & that Percy started to collect material much earlier than is generally known.
Pollard wrote to me about a week ago concerning facsimiles. I told him they were not really necessary as the editions are easily accessible & the Cancels can be dealt with without the aid of photographs.
Yes. Chapman did send me your book & I am reading it in what leisure I can snatch from other pressing duties. I will try to write a short notice for the April number, but I have to write a paper for the Johnson Club before the 14th of March & ‘one day treads on the heels of another’.
Crane & Kaye {1} get worse. I find Grose’s Olio solemnly struck down as a periodical! I think I will leave them alone for a bit & turn to better books.
If ‘marginal number’ was a recognized term I think you would have known it; but Percy was in close touch with Dodsley who may have told him. Anyhow I think his use is worth recording. {2}
Catchwords—I much prefer ‘catch-line’, but bow to authority. A good instance will be found in The Passenger of Benvenuto 1612, as book of some 600 pp. in which the Italian is printed on the versos & the English translation ‘de Messer Chingo’ otherwise Mr King, on the rectos. Percy has an instance of a separate series for text & notes. {2}
I will try to bring these points out.
I am looking forward to meeting you on the 20th.
Thanks for cards.
Yours sincerely
L. F. Powell
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{1} A Census of British Newspapers and Periodicals, 1620-1800, by R. S. Crane and F. B. Kaye.
{2} This paragraph has been marked by McKerrow by a line in the margin.
Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, London, S.W.7.—His notes on the position of watermarks are to be printed in The Library. The format of Voyages de Texeira (1681) is unusual.
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Transcript
Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, London, S.W.7
March 14 1928
Dear Mr. McKerrow
Following your suggestion, I jotted down the substance of my notes on the Position of Watermarks and sent the article to Dr Pollard, who says he will print it in the Library. {1} I fear it is difficult to estimate the proportion of abnormalities to the total at all precisely, but I am working through Briquet & my own collection of later marks to try & get some rough idea.
Shortly after writing before I remembered another undoubted case of a central position viz. a series of marks (letters only) in the 1695 ed. of Camden’s Britannia, on paper which I imagine to be Genoese. Briquet gives quite a number of examples of centrally placed marks from N. Italy in quite early days. In my notes I have quoted a case of a folio book printed on a paper of rather uncommon shape & size (though apparently made fairly often in Italy), so that the shape (& size) of the book resembles that of 4to (O. Magnus: ‘Hist. de Gentibus Septentr.’ Rome 1555).
I have today noticed a case of a 12mo book in gatherings of 8 and 4 alternately, which I take it is not very common (Voyages de Texeira, Paris 1681). This is also interesting from the statement in the Prelim. leaves “Les exemplaires ont esté fournis”. Does this mean that the whole edition (apart from the prelim. leaves) had to be submitted for the privelege†, or to whom would they otherwise be furnished? The precise date of registration in the ‘Livre … de Imprimeurs …’ is also given.
Believe me
Yours very truly
Edward Heawood
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{1} See ‘The Position on the Sheet of Early Watermarks’, The Library, 4th series, vol. 9, no. 1 (June 1928), pp. 38-47.
† Sic.
40 Murray Road, Wimbledon. - 'two points have occurred to me...'.
(Undated. This list was compiled in response to a letter from G. E. Durham dated 23 Sept. 1927 (Add. MS a. 457/2/1) and a version of it was received by Durham on or before the 26th (Add. MS a. 457/2/3). The persons, etc., listed are A. W. Pollard, W. W. Greg, Miss H. C. Bartlett, Miss E. M. Albright, Prof. Max Förster, Miss Field, Frank Sidgwick, Louvain Library, Sir Israel Gollancz, G. C. Moore Smith, and J. M. Manly. A note has been made of those who were also written to, and those from whom acknowledgements were received.)
The Shiffolds, Holmbury St. Mary, Dorking. - Encloses the 'Pollard Shakespeare pamphlet [The Foundations of Shakespeare's Text]', which he has 'read with much interest'. Hopes his parents have had a good journey to Wallington, and are 'not too tired after it'; was a 'great pleasure' seeing them both, and he was very glad to find his mother 'so much better'.
The [Apostles'] Dinner 'went off very pleasantly. Forster's speech was excellent, not showy, but amusing and humorous, and serious too at times. [Lytton] Strachey was good', and Robert's own speech 'though less good, seemed to please people'. Sat next to George, whom Forster announced as his successor as President at the end; George then made an 'amusing two or three minutes speech, according to custom' and they adjourned. Most went to Keynes' room, where they 'drank tea and [ate] cherries and cake till past one o clock'. The oldest there were Babington Smith, MacTaggart and Dickinson. Forster said he had had a letter from Sir George which 'gave him great pleasure'.
Bessie will write soon. Robert is sending this to Wallington, as it would not arrive in time if his parents start on Tuesday. He and Bessie hope to hear soon that the 'journey went off satisfactorily'.
Mentions news of Stephen Gaselee and Bruce Rogers.
Wallington, Cambo, Morpeth. - Enjoyed reading Robert's letter about the dinner [the Apostles' dinner: see 46/303]; the society now is 'certainly a very distinguished body'. Their journey was long here but successful; Caroline is very tired but not really any worse. Comments on the 'horrors about Etna' [a destructive eruption of the volcano]. Thanks in a postscript for 'Pollard's discourse [Alfred Pollard's pamphlet The Foundations of Shakespeare's Text, sent by Robert],'; he talks great sense on a subject 'on which many people write ineffable nonsense'.
Oriel College, Oxford.—Expresses support for McKerrow’s enterprise, and makes some suggestions. Refers to the progress of his edition of Jonson.
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Transcript
Oriel College, Oxford
27 Nov. 1923
My dear Wilson,
I was in town in the vacation, but too early to catch you. I turned over 3000 uncalendared pa-pers at the Record Office to get a Jonson paper, & failed to find it; but a later searcher for me got it after looking at another 10,000. So that is well.
I am glad to hear of McKerrow’s enterprise. I’ll do what I can to help. I will send him a line later.
Middle English is a difficulty. One of the best men is Onions; but the More book showed you his defect. {1} He had all the material for that article at the tips of his neurotic fingers, & yet he could not put it into shape. Get Sisam, of the Clarendon Press.
The only suggestion I have concerns reviewing. Every paper seems to me weighted with stacks of reviews, half of which are not worth writing. Some eclectic system should be devised, of reviewing, say, six-months old books, & of these only a selection. This would differentiate the good. But it would be difficult to work & I expect rather invidious.
I have only read Pollard’s introduction to the More book. I have had no time for it. Just now I am deep in Inigo Jones, who fascinates me. Ben—vol. i—is virtually ready, & proofs should start soon.
I may be coming to town soon, & if so, I will write. Kind regards to Mrs. Wilson.
Yours ever
Percy Simpson
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{1} Presumably Onions had been invited to contribute an article to the volume Shakespeare’s Hand in the Play of Sir Thomas More, but failed to do so. Cf. MCKW A3/1.
{2} The first volume of Herford and Simpson’s edition of Ben Jonson’s works appeared this year.
Bospowes, Hayle, Cornwall.—Discusses the relationship between English miracle plays and Cornish drama.
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Transcript
Bospowes, Hayle, Cornwall
Martinmas, 1922.
Dear Sir,
Very many thanks. It seems evident that though casual allusions to the rood-legend are to be found in the English miracle plays, they do not make it their groundwork or tell it in full, as the Cornish plays do.
The expression “þe Kyngis tree” in the York play is interesting. Of course the “Kyng” may be Christ and the allusion may be to Psalm. XCV. 10, which in the Old Latin, Ambrosian & Mozarabic Psalters reads: “Dicite in gentibus (or nationibus) quia Dominus regnavit (Moz. regnabit) a ligno”. St Jerome cut out a ligno, but it got into the well known hymn of Venantius Fortunatus, “Vexilla Regis prodeunt”. But in the Cornish “Origo Mundi”, King David has the three trees, which had grown up from the three rods which Moses planted on Mount Tabor, which had been cut from the trees which grew from the three pips given to Seth by the angel, transplanted to Jerusalem, and adorned the one tree into into which they grew with a garland of silver. So the “Kyng” may be David.
Your quotation from the Chester Descent into Hell about the Oil of Mercy is Gospel of Nicodemus XIV. 3–5 done into almost literal English verse. I dare say it will be found that the whole of the play is versified Nicodemus, for that is the source of the details of the Harrowing of Hell story, though its foundation is no doubt 1 Pet. III. 18, 19 and the “descendit ad inferos” of the baptismal formula of the local Roman Church, which we commonly call “The Apostles’ Creed”.
What I was trying to get at was whether any of the English plays could be said to be the originals of the Cornish.
[At this point hooters & things went off to announce the eleven o’clock commemoration of St Armistice, who has temporarily deposed St Martin. To resume:] {1}
I think from what you say that it is evident that no such plays exist. But all existing English scriptural plays are Northern or North-East Midland[.] There are none from the South and South-West, none from Exeter, Bristol or even London, as far as I know. If the Cornish 15th century dramatists copied from anything English, it would be from their more immediate neighbours, but as I suggested to Pollard, there might be a French original, or possibly a Breton. The metre of the Cornish plays is a common medieval Latin one. Lines of seven syllables, rhyming in various orders, AABAAB, AAABAAAB, ABABAB &c. or AABCCB &c &c. with sometimes four-syllabled lines alternating with seven-syllabled couplets or triplets, and sometimes whole passages of four-syllabled lines, rhyming variously. The normal metre is that of the Pentecost Sequence “Veni, Sancte Spiritus”. Syllables are carefully counted and there is hardly a faulty line out of the 8734 of the 15th century trilogy. Judging from the specimens given in Pollard’s book {3], the English plays are less monotonously regular, and do not seem to use that metre in any of its forms as a regular thing. The later Cornish plays (St Meriasek, 1504, and the Creation play of 1611) aim at using the same metre, but the St Meriasek is much more varied in its order of rhymes and the Creation much less accurate in counting its syllables. But both aim at lines of seven or occasionally four syllables, and the rhymes are never of two syllables. I think the influence of Latin rhyming verse is evident in the Cornish, but not much in the English plays. But I think the Cornish may well be original compositions founded on legends common to all Christendom, as well as on the Bible. The St Meriasek, which is really three plays, the Life of St Meriadoc, Bishop of Vannes, the Legend of Constantine of Sylvester, and the rather unedifying episode of the Filius Mulieris from the Miracles of Our Lady, is quite original unless part of the first is from a Breton play. The second & third are taken direct as to story from the Legenda Aurea, and passages of the original Latin are quoted in the stage directions.
With renewed thanks
Yours sincerely
Henry Jenner.
There is no alliteration in Cornish mediæval verse, nor any indication [of] the Welsh “cynghanedd” (correspondence of consonants). Nor is there in Breton. Modern Breton verse copies French & I suppose Cornish merely copied Latin.
Do you know anything about French miracle plays? And their verse?
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{1} The square brackets at the beginning and end of this paragraph are in the original.
{2} English Miracles Plays, Moralities, and Interludes, edited by A. W. Pollard, 1927.
The British Academy.—Refers to the provision of photographic copies to meet the needs of destroyed libraries in Europe, and asks Greg to write a memoir of A. W. Pollard.
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Transcript
The British Academy, Burlington Gardens, W.1
May 4th, 1944.
My dear Greg,
Thanks for Sisam’s letter and the copy of Simon’s. If there is time to raise the matter on the 17th, I will do so; if not, I think we can take it up without referring to the Council. It is all the more necessary in view of the movement to meet the needs of destroyed libraries in Europe by the multiplication of photographic copies and micro-films.
At the Council on the 17th we shall have to provide for the memoir of Pollard. I hope you will be willing to undertake it. Any details that might be required with regard to the Museum service could be easily supplied.
Yours sincerely,
F. G. Kenyon.
10 Lauriston Road, Wimbledon.—Invites him to attend meetings of the Bibliographical Society as a guest, pending his election as a member.
(With envelope.)
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Transcript
10 Lauriston Road, Wimbledon
17.X.02.
Dear Sir,
Owing to the Roll of the Bibliographical Society being quite full we were unable to elect you at this month’s Council-meeting. {1} But I enclose you a card of our papers, as at present arranged, & shall be very glad if, pending your election, you can come to any of them as a guest.
faithfully yrs
Alfred W. Pollard
[Direction on envelope:] R. B. McKerrow Esqre. | 22 Friars Stile Rd. | Richmond.
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Letter-head of the Bibliographical Society. There is no stamp or other mark of posting on the envelope.
{1} The following statement appeared in the Bibliographical Society’s annual report, circulated in advance of the annual meeting on 15 December: ‘Early in the year the number of Candidate-Members on the Roll had already reached the permitted maximum (15), and since March the Council has only been able to make two elections. Five gentlemen actively engaged in bibliographical work are now waiting election as Candidate-Members, and it would be an advantage to the Society to secure their help.’ (Transactions, vii. 4.) McKerrow was presumably one of the five gentlemen alluded to.
40 Murray Road, Wimbledon. - Sends many thanks to Gow for his 'memoir of Alfred Housman'.
The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, S.W.1.—Discusses the performance history of The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York.
Bel Respiro, Alassio (Italy).—Reflects on the manner in which manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales were produced.
40 Murray Road, Wimbledon, S.W.—Sends fiftieth birthday greetings. Suggests giving Gwendolen Murphy an honorarium.
(Letter-head of the Bibliographical Society. Dated Tuesday.)
25 Heath Drive, Hampstead, N.W.3.—Has offered the copyright in his Coleridge book to the Bibliographical Society. Praises McKerrow’s book, but wishes that he had included a description of the evolution of the half-title.
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Transcript
25 Heath Drive, Hampstead, N.W.3
4th Nov. 1927.
My dear McKerrow,
Many thanks for your letter of the 26 Oct. which afforded me much information I did not be-fore possess. I quite thought that the copyright, if any, in that Coleridge book {1} belonged to the Bibliographical Society, and I wish it did. I do not wish to own copyrights; neither do I desire that my executors should be troubled with them. I have therefore written to Pollard & offered to give to the Society the copyrights of my Catalogue & of my Bibliographies. I shall be grateful if the Society will accept them. They are probably of small use, if any; but they might be of use at some future time.
Always sinc[erel]y yours
Thos. J. Wise
I am deep in your splendid book, & I congratulate you upon the success you have achieved. I wish you had devoted a paragraph or two to the evolution of the Half-title. I have an idea regarding it.
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{1} Probably Wise’s Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published by the Bibliographical Society in 1913; but the Society also published a supplement in 1919 under the title Coleridgeiana, and in 1927 Wise printed privately Two Lake Poets: A Catalogue of Printed Books, Manuscripts, and Autograph Letters by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge collected by Thomas James Wise.