Item 31a - Letter from B. C. Nangle to R. B. McKerrow

2 single sheets

1484 Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut.—Praises An Introduction to Bibliography, and sends some early examples of references to an author’s earlier work title-pages, compiled from the Monthly Review (Add. MS 355/4/31b–e).

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Transcript

1484 Yale Station | New Haven, Connecticut
24 April 1928

My dear Mr. McKerrow,

Praise and appreciation of your invaluable Introduction to Bibliography must by now have become an old story to you; were it not, therefore, for some interesting titles which have fallen in my way during the last few weeks, I should hesitate to bother you with a note telling you of my own delight in it, and of the enthusiastic interest of several undergraduates who discovered it in my rooms, became fascinated, and ended by reading it from cover to cover.

The titles on the enclosed cards are of interest with reference to your discussion of the mention of an author’s earlier work on the title-page of a new one. It happened that when I read this passage (p. 93) I was engaged in going with some thoroughness through the files of The Monthly Review; since I had already worked my way through a great many volumes, I am not prepared to say that the earliest of my references is the earliest actual entry indicating this practice. Nor (and here is the fly in the ointment) have I been able to see copies of any of the books here represented; by a devilish chance our library possesses none of them! All my experience with the Monthly, however, tends to show that their invariable practice was to quote with scrupulous fidelity the title-page of each book reviewed, adding any supplementary information in the body of the review itself.

It seems extremely probable, therefore, that Mr. Sadleir’s suggested date of 1791 for the institution of the practice could be pushed back some years in the second edition of your work. I am sorry to be unable [to] assure you definitely that the actual title-pages read as these entries indicate, and sincerely hopeful that I am not sending you off on a false lead!

Most sincerely yours,
Benjamin C. Nangle

Ronald B. McKerrow, Esqr.
Great Missenden, Bucks.

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McKerrow has written at the head, ‘answered 9 May 28’.

Sent with Add. MS a. 355/4/31b-e.