Item 1b - Copy of notes by R. B. McKerrow on ‘Elements of Bibliography’

2 single sheets

Transcript

Elements of Bibliography

Please note:

This is not offered as a finished manuscript. It is a typescript of six lectures which have been under continual revision for a number of years and they are, I think, approximately as last delivered, except that certain connecting links, recalling what was said in the previous lecture or anticipating the subject of the next one, have been cut out, and that, here and there, references to what was actually show to the students are omitted. I had for example a stereotype plate, a couple of Malone Society books in sheets and several other things which I could pass round and com-ment upon.

It will presumably be advisable to get rid altogether of the lecture-style and to substitute that of a text book, turning “you” into the “student” throughout and getting rid of colloquialisms. (Personally I rather like reading stuff written in the 2nd person, but I believe that most people don’t). It will also be necessary to be more careful in certain descriptions of processes where in lecturing one is greatly helped by gesture.

The illustrations can be improved. I think a full-size half-tone of a small page of type, and a reduced one of a quarto or 8vo forme, showing furniture, would be useful. Also an illustration of the modern reconstruction of Moxon’s press at University College could I think, be got and shows many points not clear in the old drawings. And the fantastic watermark in the sheets of paper (fig. 8, 9, 10 in leaflet) needs to be replaced by a new one. But it would not be necessary to have a great many new ones: about half could be taken from my Introduction to Bibliography.

Points specially to be considered:

(1) Whether you think the book is worth doing?

(2) Whether you think it could be usefully elaborated in any particular direction. For example it makes no attempt to discuss the bibliographical description of books from a practical point of view. I suppose this could be done, but it is so much easier to do it if one has a few books before one, that it seemed hardly worth while.

(3) Should more be said of the 18th century?

(4) I should like to elaborate the ‘questions’ at the end. Is there any examination in bibliography at Oxford from the old papers of which questions could be got. There is one in London, but the people concerned seem to be very secretive. Possibly they find it difficult to invent a sufficient variety (I dare say it is!).

(5) There are two other matters of which something might be said.

(a) type, things like long [blank] and [blank] {1} how modern books generally deal with such things in reprinted {2} earlier ones. I find students often completely muddled about such points.

(b) publishing—how a book gets from the author on to the market, a very little about the financial side of the matter in Shakespeare’s time and now. The relation of printer, publisher and bookseller—and the fact that their functions were always distinct though they may have been undertaken by the same person.

(6) Perhaps even if it would be useless to say much about bibliographical formulae, collation etc. one should say more than is said here. In particular I should like to add a page or two about the distinction between a description of an ideal copy of a book, as in the usual ‘bibliography’, and a description of a particular copy which one has before one. People are always confusing these.

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Typed transcript. ‘COPY’ is typed in the top left-hand corner of each sheet. The original was sent to R. W. Chapman with the original of Add. MS. a. 355/6/1a and the text of ‘Elements of Bibliography’ (perhaps Add. MS. a. 355/6/2b).

{1} In the original the first blank was probably filled with a ‘ſ’ (long ‘s’). It is unclear what was in the second, if anything.

{2} A slip for ‘reprinting’.