sub-fonds 460 - Papers of R. B. McKerrow

12 items, in 3 folders

These letters and papers were found loose in McKerrow’s annotated copies of three of his own publications, namely an offprint of ‘Some Notes on the Letters i, j, u and v in Sixteenth Century Printing’, reprinted from The Library, July 1910 (Adv. c. 25. 80), and his editions of John Weever, Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion, 1599 (1911) (Adv. c. 25. 81), and Greenes Newes both from Heauen and Hell, 1593, and Greenes Funeralls, 1594 (two texts in one volume) (1911) (Adv. c. 25. 82). These books were among a number of books and papers donated to the Library by McKerrow’s son Malcolm in September 1994.

The letters and papers in this group all relate either to the books from which they were removed or to similar literary and bibliographical subjects. Two of the books were part of an abortive series of reprints. This series was first brought to the notice of the public in 1910 in a prospectus (2/1) in which McKerrow announced his intention of producing a short series of reprints of Elizabethan and Jacobean tracts, to be published for the editor by Sidgwick and Jackson and printed at the Oxford University Press. Subscribers were sought for the initial set of six volumes, and de-tails of the first five were given (the sixth was to be announced later), but McKerrow pointed out that, although the first two volumes would be is-sued in any case, he could not proceed further with the project unless he received the names of at least 150 subscribers. The first two books—editions of John Weever’s Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion, 1599, and of Greenes Newes both from Heauen and Hell, 1593 and Greenes Funeralls, 1594 (two texts in one volume)—were in sub-scribers’ hands by September 1911 (2/4) and a notice of the proposed series appeared in Notes and Queries in November (2/5), but the condition for its continuance was apparently not met, for no further volumes were issued. McKerrow’s account of subscriptions (2/2) indicates—if it is complete—that orders for only sixty-five sets were received.

The documents are arranged in three files, according to the publication from which they were removed. Within each of these files the items are arranged in chronological order.

The printed books from which the present papers were removed are Adv. c. 25. 80–2. The main series of McKerrow’s papers is catalogued under the reference MCKW, and other of McKerrow’s papers are catalogued as Add. Ms. a. 355 and Add. Ms. a. 457.

In descriptions of ‘extent and medium’, a ‘single sheet’ is a single unfolded leaf of paper comprising 2 pages; a ‘folded sheet’ is a sheet of paper folded once, comprising 2 leaves and 4 pages.

This catalogue was compiled by A. C. Green in 2008.