Item 21 - Letter from L. F. Powell to R. B. McKerrow

1 folded sheet

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.