The Bibliography of Bibliographies Begins Anew
Comprehensive authoritative bibliographies of the most popular
fields of scholarship are characteristic products of the eighteenth
century.[126] They began to appear in the last years of the
seventeenth century, when Giulio Bartolocci (1613-1687) published
the _Bibliotheca magna rabbinica_ (3 v.; 1675-1693) which Carlo
Giuseppe Imbonati (d. after 1696) completed and provided with the
supplementary _Bibliotheca latino-hebraica_ (1694). There are many
standard bibliographies to set beside it. Barthélemy d'Herbelot [de
Molainville] compiled the _Bibliothèque orientale_ in 1697, Johann
Albert Fabricius published the first edition of the _Bibliotheca
latina_ in the same year and continued with such larger and more
important works as the _Bibliotheca mediae et infimae latinitatis_
(6 v.; 1734-1746) and his masterpiece, the _Bibliotheca graeca_ (14
v.; 1705-1728). In 1693 Ellies Du Pin published the first volume
of the long theological bibliography that only his death was to
interrupt. Many of these works were revised and enlarged during
the next century and a half. The _Bibliothèque orientale_ was
republished for the last time in 1781-1783. An edition of the even
more successful _Bibliotheca latina_ was begun in 1773 and remained
incomplete. The new edition of the _Bibliotheca graeca_ begun in
1790 was brought to an end, although the work was still incomplete,
with an index published in 1838. Excellent bibliographies which are
still worth consulting were written for every subject of particular
interest to eighteenth-century scholars. J. C. Wolf published four
thick volumes of a _Bibliotheca hebraea_ in 1715-1733. William Cave,
who had begun his bibliographical activities in the seventeenth
century, Jacques LeLong, and (after the middle of the century) J.
G. Walch satisfied the demands of theologians. Langlet du Fresnoy,
Johann Burkhard Mencken, and B. G. Struve compiled exhaustive lists
of historical materials and investigations. The many bibliographies
by Johann Albert Fabricius reviewed such subjects as church history,
missions, and classical, Christian, Jewish, and heathen antiquities.
In brief, the eighteenth-century scholar had on his shelves excellent
bibliographies of the subjects that he found most interesting.
However, he did not have any good guide to them in the form of a
bibliography of bibliographies.[127]
The only bibliography of bibliographies that can be dated in the
eighteenth century has, as far as I know, disappeared entirely. It
is a manuscript dated 1707 that was sold at Amsterdam in 1743. From
the brief auctioneer's description we can infer that it resembled
Labbé's _Bibliotheca bibliothecarum_ and was a continuation of that
bibliographical tradition. I have been unable to learn anything about
its author. The description is as follows:
Bibliotheca Alphabetica à Carolo Moëtte collecta cum Indice
Auctorum, Parisiis 1707. NB. Opus hoc propriè est Bibliotheca
Bibliothecarum, MSS. ineditum.[128]
Each epoch in the history of bibliographies of bibliographies has
an individuality of its own. In the hands of Conrad Gesner and his
successors this variety of bibliography slowly established itself.
In the next epoch the work of Philip Labbé attracted contemporary
scholars to continue and improve it. Although Antoine Teissier was
the only one to publish the revision of a predecessor's work, his
procedure is characteristic of seventeenth-century scholarship. The
eighteenth century neglected the bibliography of bibliographies and
let the writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth century in this
field sink into obscurity. In the nineteenth century, as we shall
see, men undertook to compile bibliographies of bibliographies with
an astonishing disregard of the difficulties of the task and a
surprising neglect of previous efforts. Without an exception these
men were librarians and should therefore have been fully aware of
what they were doing and of what had been done. Their behavior is
nothing less than amazing. I may anticipate the theme of the next
chapter by saying that the characteristic aspect of the making
of bibliographies of bibliographies in the twentieth century is
cooperation.
When the great French bibliographer Gabriel Peignot (1767-1849)
published his _Répertoire bibliographique générale_ in 1812, he
declared that he had hit upon an entirely new idea. Although he knew
and cited such predecessors as Labbé and Teissier, he did not clearly
see that he was undertaking the task that they had already completed.
He did not use their books systematically, and he did not exhaust the
information that they had collected.
Peignot shows his competence as a bibliographer in various ways.
Like his predecessors (although he seems not to have intentionally
imitated them), he includes bibliographies printed as parts
of non-bibliographical works. For example, he quotes at the
very beginning a bibliography of books about bees from a local
agricultural journal. Within the various articles he arranges the
titles chronologically and thus suggests the historical growth
of knowledge and bibliography in a particular field. Although
bibliographers before him had often added comments, Peignot is more
systematic and generous than his predecessors. For example, his
account of bibliographies of ana--a subject to which he had himself
made an important contribution a few years before the publication
of the _Répertoire_--even includes useful references to book
reviews. Particularly interesting as a technical improvement in
bibliographical method are his frequent references to the number of
titles in the book that he is citing. Bibliographies published before
the _Répertoire_ rarely give this information. During the course
of the history that we have surveyed, the standards of accuracy
and completeness rose and Peignot attains a very high level in this
regard. The index of authors in his _Répertoire_ is both complete and
accurate and so, also, are his citations of titles.
Peignot's _Répertoire_ contains perhaps a thousand articles extending
from "Abeilles (bees)" to "Zoologie." According to Theodore
Besterman, it names two thousand bibliographies. Since Peignot is
primarily interested in surveying eighteenth-century scholarship,
he does not exhaust Labbé's _Bibliotheca bibliothecarum_ and its
continuations.
Peignot's decision to arrange his bibliography of bibliographies in
an alphabet of many small subject headings has necessarily reduced
the permanent value of his labors or, more correctly, has made it
more difficult for us to benefit from them. The _Répertoire_ suffers
from the unavoidable difficulties that arise from the choice of
headings.[129] A reader can never know whether a particular subject
will appear as a separate entry or as a subdivision of a larger
field. Will heresy stand alone or under theology? What will the term
philosophy include? Peignot gives no cross-references to aid his
reader. Nor is there an alphabetical subject index that would guide
the reader to the bibliographies included in the larger headings.
Such an alphabetical subject index would have been useful, but I
grant at once that an alphabetical subject index to an alphabetical
list of subjects seems a strange duplication. There is, to be sure, a
brief classified subject index (pp. xv-xix).
A serious and inescapable handicap to the permanent usefulness of
Peignot's alphabetical list of many small headings is the rapid
obsolescence of technical terms. In some cases we can no longer
know exactly what Peignot meant by a particular term and therefore
cannot immediately turn to a desired entry. For example, "histoire
littéraire" does not mean the history of literature or at least
of literature in the sense of belles lettres. In Peignot's use
"métaphysique" includes demonology or, as a modern bookseller would
say, "occult" books. A specialist in the history of theological
studies will know that Peignot's "théologie positive" refers to
theology based on God's revelations to man, but two professors in
a divinity school did not recognize the term. I am all the more
sympathetic with them when I read in Neville Braybrooke's account of
Christianity in England the comment on Mr. Billy Graham: "In his way
he stood for 'positive theology'."--Cited from _The Commonweal_, LX
(1954), 194. Here the term seems to mean "a convincing religion for
the man in the street."
Peignot does not offer an index of subjects because he believes
that his table of contents and his alphabetical arrangement make it
unnecessary. This belief is not well-founded because he subdivides
many long articles and gives no cross-references and no indication
of subdivisions in the table of contents. The bibliography of an
individual classical author appears in its alphabetical place in
the article "Classiques" (pp. 155-244) and of a religious order
in "Ordres monastiques" (pp. 432-437). Without a cross-reference
from "Bible" (pp. 26-32) one will perhaps fail to find a list of
polyglot Bibles under the heading "Polyglottes" (p. 447). It is not
immediately obvious that Peignot has arranged his valuable list (pp.
40-75) of catalogues of public libraries alphabetically according to
places. He would have added little to the size of his book by adding
cross-references and he would have made it much easier to use.
Although Peignot feels the temptation that comes to every
bibliographer to wander afield and include works of little pertinence
to the task, he apologizes for yielding to it in a prefatory "Nota"
to the useful article "Bibliothèques" (pp. 32-135). He includes here
such works as Richard de Bury, _Philobiblon_ (a book about collecting
books); Claudius Clement, _Musaei_ (a general treatise on library
science that contains little bibliographical information); and Louis
Jacob, _Traicté des plus belles bibliothèques_ (an excellent account
of European libraries in the early seventeenth century). In general,
however, Peignot adheres very strictly to his intention of listing
only bibliographies.
We must look with a critical eye at Peignot's classification. Since
he has an article on the bibliography of bibliographies, he should
not put Labbé, _Bibliotheca bibliothecarum_, in "Des livres en
général" (p. 387). Boulard's treatise on bibliographical method
stands on the border of what is admissible and should certainly not
be placed with "Des livres rares," a list of catalogues of rare
books (p. 396). Georg Draud, _Bibliotheca classica_, a classified
compilation of titles listed in the semi-annual catalogues of the
German booktrade, includes juridical works as a matter of course,
but it is not correctly placed in "Droit" (p. 254). Anton Francesco
Doni's _La libraria_ is a catalogue of Italian books and is not, as
Peignot lists it (p. 95), a catalogue of a private library.
Peignot has seen many of the books that he cites and in this regard
surpasses his predecessors. He does not, however, report German
authors' names and titles (even titles written in Latin) with
satisfactory accuracy.[130] I am not disposed to judge him very
harshly for this fault because the language was no doubt strange to
him and the books were probably not available. A more serious fault
is, it seems to me, his neglect of obviously important books that
he either could have seen or should have known. I cannot understand
how he overlooked such authorities on church history and theology
as Louis Ellies Du Pin, Jacques LeLong, and J. G. Walch. He knows
only two of the six eighteenth-century bibliographies of diplomatics
that Namur commends (pp. xvii-xix), but all of them are, it must be
acknowledged, German works and therefore probably not within his
reach.
These comments on Peignot's faults can easily obscure our estimate
of his merits. His succinct and abundant comments were no doubt
useful when he wrote and are still valuable. His chronological
arrangement of titles is a spur to historical meditations on the
development of many fields of study. A modern scholar finds it hard
to duplicate some information that Peignot has assembled. Where
else can he easily find bibliographies of the collections of Latin
poets,[131] dictionaries,[132] encyclopedias,[133] translators of
the classics,[134] and accounts of royal and noble writers?[135]
His review of bibliographies of incunabula lays a foundation for
a history of such works,[136] and so also does his survey of
bibliographies of medicine.[137] The most amusing list in Peignot's
_Répertoire_ is a collection of bibliographies of men who practised
trades or were members of professions having little connection with
literature.[138]
Peignot's abundant and informative critical notes deserve special
praise. For example, he comments on catalogues of public libraries
(pp. 40-75), and although we have longer lists of these catalogues,
his comments have not been superseded. A modern cataloguer would
probably have separated the catalogues of manuscripts from the
catalogues of books. An even more important survey deals with
catalogues of private libraries (pp. 75-135) arranged according to
the owners' names. He tells the number of lots offered for sale,
remarks on the presence or absence of indexes, and warns us when
the catalogue was printed in a small edition. He praises the superb
_Catalogus Bibliothecae Bunavianae_ (p. 86), calls attention to
varying editions of the Cambis catalogue (pp. 87-88), and commends
the Imperiali catalogue (pp. 104-105). He points out the noteworthy
collections of journals entitled _Mercure_ and books on the theatre
in the Pompadour catalogue (p. 119). He often notes the use of a
novel system of classification. One could only wish that Peignot
had devoted even more effort to this list. He would have enriched
the comments and would have eliminated various works that are not
properly included among catalogues of private libraries.[139]
In sum, then, Peignot's _Répertoire_ represents a definite advance
in the progress of bibliographies of bibliographies for its relative
accuracy and its abundant comments. It is what he intended it to
be: a survey of eighteenth-century bibliography rather than a
comprehensive bibliography of bibliographies.
Pie Namur, who wrote a very large bibliography of bibliographies a
short generation after Peignot, regarded the _Répertoire_ and two
contemporary compilations by T. H. Horne and A. F. Delandine as his
only predecessors. Although these compilations are brief selective
lists of a sort not included in this essay, Namur's recognition of
them makes it necessary to characterize them briefly.
The bibliographical portion (pp. 403-758) of Thomas Hartwell Horne
(1780-1862), _An Introduction to the Study of Bibliography_ (1814) is
mentioned here only because Pie Namur, the author of a bibliography
of bibliographies next to be discussed, names it along with A. F.
Delandine's "Bibliographie spéciale" and Peignot's _Répertoire_ as a
predecessor. Like other writers of handbooks of bibliography, Horne
cites bibliographies without aiming at completeness. Horne's Part
III, "A Notice of the Principal Works, Extant on Literary History in
General, and on Bibliography in Particular," gives the information
that it promises but contains no subject bibliographies and therefore
cannot be called a general bibliography of bibliographies. It
contains a brief account of "Dictionaries of Literary History" or
works that we would call universal biobibliographies (pp. 403-408).
The interesting survey of "Treatises, &c. on Literary History" (pp.
408-418) includes G. M. König, _Bibliotheca vetus et nova_ (1678)
and J. P. Niceron, _Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des hommes
illustres dans la république des lettres_ (43 v.; 1726-1745) that
should have appeared in the preceding section and two histories of
philosophy for which his plan had no place. "Writers on British
Literary History" (pp. 419-431) and "Writers on Foreign Literary
History" (pp. 431-447) are accounts of national biobibliographies,
histories, and bibliographies of literature, and of specialized
biobibliographical writings. One finds in them occasional titles of
infrequent occurrence like Christopher Wordsworth, _Ecclesiastical
Biography, or Lives of eminent men connected with the history of
religion in England, from the commencement of the Reformation to
the Revolution_ (6 v.; London, 1810) or Giovanni Agostini, _Notizie
istorico-scritiche intorno la vita e le opere degli scrittori
Vineziani_ (2 v.; Venice, 1752). His rather full account of British
works has some value but his incomplete foreign list is noteworthy
chiefly for such curiosities as Matthias Bellus, _Exercitatio de
vetere litteratura Hunno-Scythica_ (pp. 433-434) or Giambattista
Toderini, _Della letteratura turchesa_ (p. 447). Horne devotes the
following sections to writers on the materials used in writing and
printing (pp. 448-450), writers on the origin of languages, letters,
and writing (pp. 451-469), and writers on the history and the art
of printing (pp. 469-513). A strictly bibliographical "Chapter IV.
Books" (pp. 513-550) contains books on bibliomania, handbooks of
bibliography, catalogues of rare books and incunabula, dictionaries
of anonyma and pseudonyma, and lists of burned, suppressed, or
censured books. The most valuable part of Horne's _Introduction_
is the fifth chapter, on bibliographical systems and catalogues.
The account of bibliographical systems (pp. 551-563) is not very
important, but the review of British and foreign public and private
library catalogues (pp. 564-733) has not been entirely superseded.
Although far from complete, it contains information not easily found
elsewhere. It resembles Peignot's similar review, on which Horne
has drawn heavily. He concludes with a brief survey of publishers'
catalogues (pp. 733-741), references (pp. 741-742) to two of
Peignot's bibliographies that he believes to be adequate guides to
subject bibliography, and addenda (pp. 743-758). Horne did not intend
his _Introduction_ to be a bibliography of bibliographies and we need
say no more about it.
A "Bibliographie spéciale et chronologique des principaux ouvrages
sur l'imprimerie et la bibliologie" by Antoine François Delandine
(1756-1820) is printed in his _Bibliothèque de Lyons_ (Paris, 1816).
I have not seen Delandine's original list but have used a later and
slightly enlarged version. In this, Etienne Psaume has, according
to Namur, added a few books printed between 1812 and 1822 and the
new title "Appendice de l'Essai sur la bibliologie" (1824). This,
is an annotated chronological list of nearly three hundred and
fifty books on the history of printing, catalogues of public and
private libraries, and bibliographies of miscellaneous scope. This
somewhat casual performance is useful at best for a few curious or
informative notes. The bibliographies do not amount to many more than
a hundred and do not offer either in number or variety a satisfactory
survey of bibliography. A selection of good catalogues of private
libraries (chiefly French) is the best feature of the "Appendice."
The distressingly careless citations show that the compilers did
not see some of the books. This list shows some originality and is
worth reading, but it deserves no significant place in the history of
bibliographies of bibliographies.
Almost a generation passed after the publication of Peignot's
_Répertoire_ before anyone tried again to write a bibliography of
bibliographies. [Jean] Pie Namur (1804-1867), a librarian ("second
bibliothécaire") at the University of Liége, gave a sample of such
a work in his _Manuel du bibliothécaire_ in 1834 and published his
complete _Bibliographie paléographico-diplomatico-bibliologique
générale_ in 1838. Despite its many serious faults this forgotten
book deserves some recognition. Namur emphatically disclaimed (I,
p. xiv) any dependence on Peignot's _Répertoire_, which he called
a "chaos" that yielded only a few titles. In writing his _Manuel_
he had perceived that there were no adequate bibliographies of
paleography, diplomatics, and "bibliologie" and he therefore
set about compiling them. In the section of "bibliologie" he
recognized only Peignot's _Répertoire_, Horne's _Introduction_,
and Delandine's or Psaume's list as predecessors. Although he
found them unsatisfactory, he would have left his collections
unpublished but for the urging of friends, especially Baron de
Reiffenberg, librarian of the Royal Library at Brussels (see I, p.
xx). The announcement of his plan led L.-A. Constantin, who wrote
a short handbook of library science a few years later, to send two
hundred slips and to renounce the idea of making a bibliography of
bibliographies (I, pp. xxi-xxii).
We can best appreciate the not inconsiderable merits of Namur's
_Bibliographie_ by squarely facing its faults. A comprehensive
bibliographical account of paleography, diplomatics, the history of
printing and the booktrade, bibliography, the history of libraries,
and literary and critical journals is too large a task for one man
or one book. I confine my comments to a discussion of the fourth
section, which deals with bibliography.[140] Here as well as
elsewhere Namur's choice of a classified arrangement involves great
difficulties in arrangement. Namur's table of contents is inadequate
and he provided no subject index. In assigning books to categories
Namur fails sadly. He apologizes in a footnote (II, 5, n. 1) for a
confused alphabetical list of 198 general bibliographies by saying
that he has been unable to see the books and therefore cannot
classify them. In this tangled heap lists of books recommended for
various kinds of specialized libraries, trade catalogues, critical
journals, Giovanni Cinelli (later Giovanni Cinelli Calvoli), _Della
biblioteca volante_ (a bibliography of ephemeral publications), G.
F. DeBure's _Musaeum typographicum_ (a list of rare books),[141]
and general bibliographies lie side by side. Even if he had had to
leave a few titles unidentified, he had sufficient bibliographical
resources within easy reach to bring order into this confusion. But,
he should not be judged on the basis of a list that he confessed
himself unable to classify. The following section 3, which should
have been numbered 2, is entitled "Bibliographie des livres rares,
etc." (II, 12-14). This heading gives the reader no good idea of
what to expect. Namur includes here lists of rare books, lists of
ana, John Hartley's _Catalogus universalis_ (which is described by
its title), and J. B. B. van Praet's catalogues of books printed
on vellum. The anomalous items are in all perhaps a dozen of the
fifty-two titles in this section. If we disregard the interlopers,
which could easily have been put elsewhere, this section is a not
altogether unsatisfactory account of a very important variety of
eighteenth-century bibliography. Almost all catalogues of rare books
can be readily recognized by their titles and a critical account
of them--an account which is greatly to be desired--might begin
with Namur's list. In section 4, the bibliographies of anonyma
and pseudonyma, Namur succeeds better than in section 3. These
bibliographies are usually sufficiently identified by their titles
and mistakes should not occur. Two black sheep have, however, found
a way into the fold (II, 14, Nos. 272, 273). Books like these with
the title _Bibliotheca anonymiana_ are sale catalogues and not lists
of anonymous writings. The title corresponds to the modern "Library
of a Distinguished Collector" and Namur should have recognized it.
This error shows the dangers that a bibliographer runs in classifying
books without examining them.
Bibliographies of the individual languages and literatures are
ordinarily easy to recognize, but Namur makes a few egregious
mistakes in classifying them. One example is sufficient. He puts a
book on Icelandic literature correctly in the same class with books
on Danish and Swedish literature and then enters it once more among
American bibliographies. He introduces a further complication by
copying "Irlandiae" that a predecessor had misread for "Islandiae"
in the title of a second book by the same author and puts it among
British biobibliographies. Nor is this enough. He cites the author's
name, Hálfdan Einarsson, as both "Hálfdanus Einar" and "Einari, H."
and enters the first under "H" and the second under "E" in the index
of authors.[142] One can grant that the proper form of entry for
Icelandic names is difficult for foreigners, but a bibliographer
must learn it or at least adopt a consistent rule of his own making.
Although Namur knows directly or indirectly many bibliographies, he
has failed to find obvious titles. A librarian at Liége who knows
Anton Sander's Flemish biobibliography should also have known his
local books of similar character for Bruges and Ghent.[143]
Enough of this! The picture is not all black. Namur's account of
dictionaries of anonyma and pseudonyma[144] contains more titles
printed before 1838 than any other bibliography. There are some
duplications but few outright errors. His important list of books
dealing with the history of libraries and including catalogues
of institutional libraries[145] is the most useful one that I
know. He has ranged so widely as to cite the library catalogues
of the American Philosophical Society and the Library Company of
Philadelphia and (inaccurately) the Harvard College Library catalogue
of 1790. Such titles rarely come to the knowledge of European
bibliographers. The following section (II, 167-226, Nos. 721-2573)
is an equally full review of catalogues of private libraries. As he
says in a footnote at the beginning, he has made a special effort
to attain completeness. I can cite no list of trade catalogues
and publishers' catalogues comparable to Namur's (I, 171-193,
Nos. 1283-1857). I cannot judge competently his list of printer's
type facsimiles (I, 144-146, Nos. 673-768), but its extent and
the variety of printers named is impressive. His list of national
biobibliographical dictionaries (II, 106-122, Nos. 86-390) is far
from complete, but I see in the Italian section (II, 108-110, Nos.
129-169) several unusual titles. The subject bibliographies seem less
rich to me, but there are one hundred and sixteen bibliographies
of medicine (II, 77-83, Nos. 1457-1573) and eight bibliographies
of veterinary medicine (II, 84, Nos. 1574-1581). More examples of
Namur's diligence would be wearisome and would add nothing to the
picture. In spite of vexatious errors of all kinds Namur often names
a title not easily found elsewhere.
A development characteristic of nineteenth-century bibliography
consists in the publication of collectanea at more or less regular
intervals in appropriate journals. These collectanea may be lists
of recently published books and articles, books received, or brief
critical accounts of current publications. Since they do not intend
to be comprehensive, we need not examine at length those including
bibliographies. A. G. S. Josephson mentions perhaps a score of
such periodical bibliographies of bibliographies.[146] Perhaps
the earliest and most influential publications of this sort were
those in the _Anzeiger für Literatur der Bibliothekswissenschaft_
(1840-1846), which was continued until 1886 by the _Neuer Anzeiger
für Bibliographie und Bibliothekswissenschaft_. The editor,
Julius Petzholdt, used these lists of current bibliographical
publications, bibliographies of particular subjects, and critical
comments on antiquarian catalogues in the making of his _Bibliotheca
bibliographica_, but those published after 1866, when the
_Bibliotheca_ appeared, are not very well-known. Various other
journals devoted to bibliography, bibliophily, library science,
criticism, and the interests of publishers and dealers printed
similar collectanea. For example, a very full and carefully compiled
list of current bibliographical publications may be found in the
_Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, which was founded in 1884. These
numerous lists are convenient collections of useful materials, but
I am not sure that the makers of bibliographies of bibliographies
have, with the exception of Petzholdt, made full use of them. With
the rise of annual bibliographies of bibliographies[147] that aim
at comprehensiveness their importance has somewhat declined. I have
mentioned these collectanea because they represent a new development
and are to some extent the foundation of the book next to be
discussed.
After the lapse of nearly three generations the _Bibliotheca
bibliographica_ (1866) by Julius Petzholdt (1812-1891) is still a
standard bibliography of bibliographies. Its position will doubtless
remain unchallenged. More recent works--notably Theodore Besterman,
_A World Bibliography of Bibliographies_--contain more titles and
naturally include those published after 1866, but Petzholdt's
critical comments and careful collations are still indispensable. The
_Bibliotheca bibliographica_ deserves its reputation for its great
merits. It also owes this reputation to some extent to Petzholdt's
position as head of the famous library at Dresden with a long and
honorable bibliographical tradition,[148] his editorship of a
successful journal of library science, his standing as the author
of professional handbooks, and, last but not least, his vigorous
condemnation of other bibliographies. Petzholdt's self-assurance now
and again arouses resistance, and leads one to judge him as severely
as he judged others, but the _Bibliotheca bibliographica_ will remain
a landmark in bibliographical history.
Petzholdt's _Bibliotheca bibliographica_ is noteworthy for its
extent, its careful organization, its detailed collations, and
its useful critical comments. We must nevertheless admit some
qualification of all these merits. In extent, Petzholdt falls short
of his predecessor Pie Namur. Namur had in 1838 cited 10,236 titles.
Many of these did not, to be sure, fall within the limits set by
Petzholdt for his work. A generation later Petzholdt cited only an
estimated 5500 titles (I take the figure from Besterman). He achieved
this figure by excluding many old bibliographies (chiefly works of
the seventeenth century), disregarding bibliographies published as
journal articles, and including antiquarian catalogues and a few
catalogues of private libraries. Although completeness is desirable,
it is also unattainable. A comparison in terms of numbers is not very
important.
In the matter of organization the _Bibliotheca bibliographica_
has long been regarded as a model. Nevertheless one cannot defend
Petzholdt's inclusion[149] of a detailed list of schemes for
classifying books. He had collected a great deal of information
about such schemes because they interested him as a librarian, but
the subject is not pertinent to a bibliography of bibliographies.
Petzholdt's relegation of the alphabetical index of authors to a
clerk or, if he did have a clerk, to as inaccurate a clerk as he
chose, was unfortunate. His decision to provide no alphabetical index
of subjects makes the _Bibliotheca bibliographica_ hard to use. His
exclusion of articles in journals denies the purpose and spirit of
bibliography. If bibliographical collections are to guide seekers
after knowledge to information, then a bibliographer cannot justify
the deliberate neglect of materials which do not happen to be in a
particular physical condition. The best bibliography of the Tuamotus
may be, let us say, in a journal article. The bibliographer who is
aware of it and omits it merely because it is a journal article
is guilty of a serious fault. We can pardon him for not finding
it, but we cannot pardon him for rejecting it. We must not confuse
the situation by making such an excuse as "avoiding the burden of
inconsequential references." Petzholdt deliberately omitted journal
articles and therefore does not serve the man who comes to his book
as fully as he might have served him. Petzholdt's inclusion of
books dealing with the invention, history, and practice of printing
stretches the definition of his purpose, but custom is on his
side and we shall not protest unduly. Lists of books issued by a
famous publisher are of course within the scope of the _Bibliotheca
bibliographica_.
A serious criticism of Petzholdt's plan concerns the inclusion of
bibliographies, which (although pertinent) can be easily found and
might have been dealt with briefly. The bibliography of individuals
"Personale Literatur," (pp. 156-272) is a branch of bibliography
and must therefore be included. Nevertheless, few bibliographies
are more easily found than lists of an author's works. The great
biobibliographical dictionaries from Conrad Gesner's _Bibliotheca
universalis_ of 1545 down to the various editions of the _Biographie
universelle_ and the _Nouvelle biographie universelle_ contain this
information. Biographies, wherever published, ordinarily contain
bibliographies of the books written by the author in question.
There are excellent indexes of these biographies. Antoine Teissier
had added, in his _Catalogus_ and _Auctuarium_, some two thousand
biographies to Labbé's _Bibliotheca bibliothecarum_. E. M. Oettinger
had just published two editions of the _Bibliographie bibliographique
universelle_,[150] which is still a very convenient and full list of
biographies. Any good edition of a classical text is almost certain
to contain bibliographical information, and scarcely needs to be
cited in a bibliography of bibliographies.[151] He could have written
an entirely adequate bibliography of bibliographies of individuals in
much less than a hundred and sixteen pages. He might, for example,
have omitted the bibliography of R. Salomo b. Abraham b. Adereth (p.
166)--I cite the first name in his list--that is found in a biography
of this worthy and the bibliography of Martial (p. 226) that is found
in an edition of his works. Such omissions would not have impaired
his book and would have substantially reduced its bulk.
This section devoted to bibliographies of individual authors
exhibits some faults typical of Petzholdt's plan. A subdivision (pp.
156-166) without any heading begins the section and is terminated by
three asterisks in the middle of the page. Although it is set off
typographically, the lack of a heading makes it difficult to perceive
that we have in it a list of the very important biobibliographical
dictionaries of religious orders and learned academies. There is no
indication of this category in the table of contents and the names
of the religious orders and the academies do not appear in the
index. I do not see how one can readily find a biobibliographical
dictionary of the Dominicans or the Jesuits in this arrangement.
Not all of us can bring to mind immediately the names Quétif and
De Backer that are needed to find the references. In his list of
individual bibliographies Petzholdt goes so far as to include books
(not bibliographies, be it noticed) dealing with such artists as
Jost Ammann, Rembrandt, and Velasquez. He could have found another
place for books about famous publishers named Aldus and should
probably have made a special place for dictionaries of homonyms.[152]
He follows this section of individual bibliographies with a list
of books containing portraits ("Ikonographische Literatur," pp.
273-279). Its pertinence to a bibliography of bibliographies seems
debatable to me.
Petzholdt's execution of his plan leaves something to be desired.
He provides the obviously necessary table of contents, but fails
to include in it many subdivisions that he expresses by means of
headings or typographical devices or only implies by the arrangement
of titles. Experience teaches a reader that Petzholdt begins a
section with general works, often a modern annual bibliography,
proceeds through a chronological list, and concludes with specialized
antiquarian catalogues. This is an altogether logical order.
Subdivisions of a large category follow the general section. After
the general bibliography of medicine, for example, Petzholdt
continues with bibliographies of pathology and therapeutics (pp.
597-600). This arrangement makes necessary a full record of the
subdivisions in an index, but Petzholdt's index is only an author
index. There are occasional failures to include authors' names in the
index. We must judge these flaws kindly, for all men are fallible,
and bibliographers are no exception to the rule.
Writers of bibliographies of bibliographies have usually preferred a
classification according to subjects to an alphabetical arrangement
of titles with subject indexes. Joris Vorstius defends their
preference eloquently and with good arguments.[153] There is,
however, something to be said against it. Convenient as a classified
bibliography is as first issued, it cannot be easily revised or
enlarged.[154] When library cataloguers adopt new methods, when
new categories are set up in science, theology, law, and literary
history, a classified bibliography of bibliographies becomes
difficult to use.
In the history of bibliographies of bibliographies we can look
back to at least three occasions when men discarded the classified
bibliographies made by their predecessors. Men of the seventeenth
century seem to have made little use of Gesner's _Pandectae_, men
of the eighteenth century found as little use for the difficult
classification employed in Labbé's and Teissier's books, and few of
us can use Petzholdt's categories easily. The lesson is that each age
must create its own bibliography of bibliographies.
Petzholdt's _Bibliotheca bibliographica_ is a classified bibliography
that shows signs of obsolescence. The organization of knowledge and
the categories that seemed suitable to Julius Petzholdt in 1866 are
often confusing rather than helpful today. Keenly interested as
he was in the theory of classification, no one was more competent
than he to select the right headings. But a modern scholar who
consults the _Bibliotheca bibliographica_ must put himself in the
place of a man who lived almost a century ago. For example, he must
remember that Hungary was associated politically with Austria and
Austrian cataloguers and dealers listed and sold Hungarian books.
Consequently, Petzholdt cites (pp. 320-321) bibliographies of
Hungarian books along with bibliographies of German books and makes
no entry in the table of contents for Hungarian bibliographies. I do
not say that he was wrong, but I do say that a modern reader must
remember the political situation of 1866 to use Petzholdt's book.
Petzholdt's adoption of a classified arrangement required him to be
very careful in assigning books to categories and to provide abundant
cross-references. As we have seen, his subdivisions of categories
are not clearly marked and may escape the notice of an experienced
user of bibliographies. For example, a bibliography of "Programme"
(learned essays issued with the annual reports of German secondary
schools) appears (p. 293) properly enough among the bibliographies
of German and Swiss publications but few will find it. A few pages
later (pp. 298-299) Petzholdt lists bibliographies of German and
Swiss journals. Since these two categories are not named in the
table of contents or the index, the information is almost completely
buried. "Prognostica" or prophecies of future events--a genre of
writings that was very popular in the late Middle Ages and the
Renaissance--gave Petzholdt trouble. Some of these are listed as
pseudo-philosophy (see p. 467: Heuschling), and others are perhaps
more appropriately found with almanacs ("Calenderliteratur," pp.
539-540). A bibliography of Swedish almanacs (p. 399) appears in
the section for Swedish literature without a cross-reference to or
from the bibliography of almanacs. "Loosbücher" or books telling how
to interpret omens are in the section for psychology (p. 467), and
this is a heading under "Philosophische Litteratur." Examples are
wearisome, and I shall give no more.
A classified bibliography must have an exhaustive table of contents,
a full index of authors, and an adequate alphabetical subject index.
Petzholdt's _Bibliotheca bibliographica_ is probably as carefully
made as any such book can be made, but its table of contents is a
scanty recapitulation of the very largest headings, its index of
authors is incomplete, and a subject index is lacking. I have already
expressed sincere admiration for the book and feel all the more
keenly the presence of these defects.
Petzholdt's frequent disparaging remarks show that he did not
esteem highly the bibliographical achievements of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. We need not defend them here, but we must
recognize that his low opinion of them explains many omissions of
early bibliographies in his own work. His admirable survey of books
that a scholar would find useful in 1866 gives no adequate account
of the historical development of bibliography or of the wealth of
bibliographical work before 1750. His very convenient chronological
arrangement of titles in the various categories does often suggest
the historical development and at times his choice of older books is
generous.
Petzholdt has not compared his accounts of some fields with easily
available bibliographies and therefore fails to include obviously
important books. In the field of national bibliographies, Petzholdt
chose to pass over many older bibliographies that seemed to him to be
no longer useful. Both the Latin and the German editions of Heinrich
Pantaleon's rare sixteenth-century German biobibliography could
perhaps be dispensed with, and I shall not object to his omission of
them.[155] I think he should not have passed over without mention
Henning Witte's biobibliographical dictionaries, which are still
useful sources of information about obscure seventeenth century
writers. To be sure, Witte's _Repertorium biblicum_ is cited (p.
286), but this is the least useful of Witte's books. Petzholdt's
account of German regional biobibliographies (pp. 299-322) can only
be called superficial. In Robert F. Arnold, _Allgemeine Bücherkunde
zur neueren deutschen Literaturgeschichte_,[156] which I have
compared only for the first page (the entries extending from Aargau
through Bayern), I find twelve books published before 1866 that
Petzholdt does not name. If we turn to works of larger scope, one
cannot easily find a reason for omitting D'Herbelot, _Bibliothèque
orientale_. First published in 1697, improved and enlarged in later
editions, and brought up to date by J. T. Zenker's continuation of
1846-1861, it remains the only general account of Oriental studies
for its period. Petzholdt neglects to mention the seventeenth-century
biobibliographies of Italian and French Orientalists compiled by Paul
Colomies and deemed worthy of revision by no less a scholar than
J. C. Wolf. With all its faults Namur's _Bibliographie_ could have
helped Petzholdt to fill such gaps.
Petzholdt lavishes labor and space on antiquarian catalogues. He
cites them in closely printed pages in double columns at the end of
every major subject division and obviously intends the reader to
regard them as subject bibliographies. Some antiquarian catalogues
are very valuable and others are worthless for this purpose. We
have no adequate appraisal of them except these lists by Petzholdt
and for this reason he deserves high praise. In fields where no
good bibliography is available we are glad to use these catalogues,
even though the books have been dispersed. When institutions
have purchased the collections _en bloc_, the catalogues have a
special importance because the books can still be found with little
difficulty. Kuczynski and Knaake are such well-known guides to the
poorly-recorded books of the Reformation that they are ordinarily
cited simply by the authors' names.[157] The sale catalogues of
the libraries of K. W. L. Heyse, K. H. G. Meusebach, and Viktor
Manheimer are indispensable aids in the almost uncharted sea of
German seventeenth-century literature.[158] Bibliographers and
bibliophiles use antiquarian and sale catalogues in tracing the
history of particular copies of famous rarities.[159] A student of
the Dance of Death consults the Susan Minns catalogue,[160] and Mario
Praz compiled a bibliography of emblem books almost exclusively from
antiquarian catalogues and catalogues of private libraries.[161]
Indispensable, then, as these catalogues often are, the compiler of
a list should be alert to reject those of little value. Petzholdt
should not have devoted seven pages (pp. 691-696) to antiquarian
catalogues of classical Latin and Greek authors. Excellent
bibliographies were available and a highly selective list of
catalogues would have been sufficient. He could surely have omitted a
catalogue (p. 696) of twenty pages issued by E. Weingart in 1864 that
contains chiefly ordinary German books. The choice of catalogues for
permanent record in a bibliography of bibliographies calls for the
judgment and experience that Petzholdt had and did not use.
The list of catalogues (pp. 98-101) appended to the general
bibliographies is perhaps the most unfortunate exhibit of
Petzholdt's selections. His wide experience in this field should
have told him the right catalogues to cite. He offers us a strange
hodgepodge consisting of one early eighteenth-century catalogue (the
_Duboisiana_), a handbook of bibliography, several nineteenth-century
catalogues of private libraries, and a few dealers' catalogues.
The _Duboisiana_, Michael Denis's _Einleitung in die Bücherkunde_,
and Part II of the Libri catalogue (1861) are not hard to justify,
but the remaining titles appear to be a random selection. Inasmuch
as he devotes almost one quarter of the space to a full-length
citation of a part of the Libri catalogue, he should have taken
the trouble to find the other parts. Although Petzholdt's list of
catalogues interesting to bibliographers has the merit of being
more international in scope than most of his lists for special
disciplines, he overlooked many large and admirable polymathic
catalogues. He does not mention the Thott and Heber catalogues or the
_Firmiana_, to name no others.
Petzholdt's abundant descriptive and critical comments ensure
the _Bibliotheca bibliographica_ of a permanent place on every
bibliographer's desk. He expresses an extensive analysis and usually
accurate opinion about almost every book that he cites. It did not
occur to him to tell the reader the number of titles in these books,
but bibliographers have been slow to realize the value of this detail.
There are, however, some qualifications of any praise of
Petzholdt's comments. His unsympathetic feeling for sixteenth-
and seventeenth-century bibliographers leads him to dismiss (p.
7) Teissier's bibliographies of bibliographies with "Virtually
worthless today (Gegenwärtig so gut wie werthlos)." His condemnation
of Raffaelle Soprani's Genoese biobibliography (pp. 360-361) and
Leo Allacci's _Apes Urbanae_ (p. 362) for listing authors by their
first names can be properly called naive. In describing Agostino
Oldoini's similar book for Perugia (p. 363), he says that this was
the usual procedure in the seventeenth century and involved only the
inconvenience of consulting an index of last names. These Renaissance
bibliographers had inherited this procedure from medieval scholars
who knew men by their Christian names and used other designations
only when a differentiation of individuals was necessary. Even today
a bibliography arranged in this fashion can prove to be a useful
tool. The medieval mathematician Richard Suisset, whose last name
occurs in various spellings, can be easily tracked down by use of his
Christian name. He is not easy to find in a modern book unless one
remembers the particular spelling of his name that the author prefers.
Petzholdt passes some very severe judgments on some books that
were once highly esteemed and on some that are unique surveys of a
particular field. Whatever defects such books may have, they should
not be damned hastily and completely. For example, Petzholdt's
rejection (p. 160) of Johannes Tritheim's catalogue of Carmelite
writers as "bibliographically completely worthless (Bibliographisch
ganz ohne Werth)" is far too harsh. In 1576, after it had circulated
in manuscript for almost a century, the Carmelites believed it
deserved to be printed. Three more editions (1596, 1624, and 1643),
all of which Petzholdt cites, came out during the next seventy
years. Men obviously found it useful, and it is the basis of the
modern Carmelite bibliography. The remark "Of altogether inferior
bibliographical value (Bibliographisch von ganz untergeordnetem
Werthe)" is even more unjust to Theodore Petreius's Carthusian
bibliography (p. 161). However bad it may be, Petzholdt knew no other
Carthusian bibliography. The only bibliography of a field may be
incomplete, inaccurate, or badly arranged and it may even have all
these defects, but it cannot be altogether worthless. Paul Lehmann, a
competent authority in medieval bibliography and literary history,
mentions Petreius and some other early writers of biobibliographies
of religious orders and says that scarcely one of these writers
has been superseded, although details in their work may need
correction.[162]
Petzholdt's critical remarks on bibliographies written in the second
half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century
are very full and informative. Rarely does he err as badly as he does
in a comment on Emil Weller's _Annalen_. This partial revision of G.
W. Panzer, _Annalen der deutschen National-Literatur_ (1792-1805)
is, like the original work, still valuable for German publications
between 1500 and 1525. Weller's notes on books that he had seen
contain no great number of serious mistakes. Nevertheless, Petzholdt
says (p. 708): "A book that deserves very much to be noticed,
although it by no means lacks bibliographical defects and [shows]
hastiness and carelessness. It owes its great value to the wealth
of the collections that the compiler was able to use." Weller was
as difficult in his manners as Magliabecchi, Fontanini, and other
bibliographers have been on occasion and had spoken unkindly of
Petzholdt, but he did not deserve such a patronizing slur.
Petzholdt's self-assurance carries him to the length of condemning
books that he has not seen. Of a _Catalogo di commedie italiane_
published in 1776 he says: "It is said to be an extremely rare
pamphlet that contains all the Italian comedies arranged in
alphabetical order according to the authors' names. The rarity of the
pamphlet seems to be greater than its bibliographical value."[163]
As he indicates by an asterisk, he has not seen the _Catalogo_.
Any complete or relatively complete account of Italian comedies is
obviously a useful book.
All that I have said in qualification of Petzholdt's merits does
not diminish my admiration for him and his book. The _Bibliotheca
bibliographica_ deserves a close and critical reading and only
a great book survives such study. It is a masterpiece of modern
bibliography.
I turn now to a smaller book by another famous bibliographer. It is
one of his minor efforts and will not detain us long. Joseph Sabin
(1821-1881), a bibliographer of Americana, found John Power's little
_Handy-Book about Books_ (London, 1870) very unsatisfactory. Although
Power intended only to offer a brief selective list of books useful
to a bibliographer or bibliophile, Sabin rejected it and wrote a
much larger list. He entitled it _Bibliography of Bibliography, or a
handy book about books which relate to books, being an alphabetical
catalogue of the most important works descriptive of the literature
of Great Britain and America, and more than a few relative to France
and Germany_ (1877). It names perhaps twelve hundred titles and
includes a few bibliographies printed as parts of non-bibliographical
works and a few journal articles. The word "literature" in the title
means publications in any field of learning and not merely belles
lettres. Since Sabin provides neither a table of contents (his
strictly alphabetical arrangement did not call for one) nor a subject
index, one must read his book from cover to cover to find what it
contains or to discover a particular subject bibliography. His
occasional brief critical comments are often drawn from Petzholdt.
As his subtitle indicates, he has included many books that are not
bibliographies. Some he has carried over from Power's list that he
has included in its entirety, although with misgivings, and some he
has added on his own responsibility. Beloe's _Anecdotes of Literature
and Scarce Books_ contains much bibliographical information, but
can hardly be called a bibliography. Bonnardot's treatises on
repairing bindings, Botford's and Clarke's books about libraries,
and Constantin's treatise on library economy are books about books
in the modern sense of the term. Like most writers of a bibliography
of bibliographies, Sabin includes works dealing with the history of
printing.
In his title Sabin announces an intention of naming chiefly
bibliographies written by British and American scholars or
dealing with British and American subjects. Since he was an
agent and bookdealer specializing in Americana and the author
of a bibliography in that field, his account of bibliographies
of Americana is naturally adequate. It begins with Bishop White
Kennett's _Bibliothecae Americanae Primordia_ (1713) and extends
through later standard works down to the antiquarian catalogues of
such dealers as Frederik Muller, Otto Rich, and Henry Stevens in
Sabin's own day. His selection of strictly British bibliographies
is more cursory. Although he had Petzholdt's description before
him, he reports John Bale's sixteenth century biobibliographies
inaccurately. He passes over John Pits's Renaissance account of
British authors without mention. Thomas Tanner's _Bibliotheca
Britannico-Hibernica_, which was still a very valuable reference
work when Sabin was writing, either was so rare that it escaped his
notice or seemed, although wrongly, to have been replaced. Sabin
is obviously not much interested in British biobibliographies. His
account of bibliographies in special fields is fairly satisfactory.
He gives many useful references to British and American catalogues
of private libraries, and his comments on them are often helpful.
His arrangement of these titles is extremely clumsy. I cite the
catchwords under which Sabin lists a few of these catalogues: Askew,
Bibliotheca Heberiana (he neglects to mention the thirteenth part),
Bibliotheca Smithiana, Catalogue of Books ... in the Collection of
Colonel Joseph Aspinwall, and Crevenna. These are references now
to the collector's name and now to the first word in the title.
_The Catalogue of the Valuable Library of Stanesby Alchorne,
Esq._ is under the compiler's name, T. F. Dibdin. There are no
cross-references and the arrangement is confusing. Sabin's interest
in T. F. Dibdin led him to cite an autobiography, a book that cannot
be called a bibliography.
Sabin promises to give "more than a few" bibliographies relative to
France and Germany, but does not make clear how he chooses them. He
passes over Johannes Tritheim and Conrad Gesner without mention and
seems to know little about other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
bibliographies. His wide acquaintance with Americana leads him to
mention Antonio León Pinelo's _Epitome_ of 1620, perhaps the first
important bibliography of Americana. On the whole, his choice
of eighteenth century bibliographies is judicious. He cites the
encyclopedic Georgi and such standard catalogues of rare books as
Clement and Freytag, although he does not know the last and largest
edition of Johannes Vogt, _Catalogus librorum rariorum_. He makes
a good selection of eighteenth-century subject bibliographies,
which were for the most part still valuable reference works in
the 1870's. History is sufficiently represented by Lenglet du
Fresnoy and Meusel's edition of Struve. Cave, Du Pin, and Walch
are the right books to recommend to a theologian. As far as he
goes, Sabin is generally successful in naming histories, which
are virtually bibliographies, of national literatures, but J. A.
Fabricius, _Bibliotheca mediae et infimae latinitatis_ and J. C.
Wolf, _Bibliotheca hebraea_ are lacking. He mentions only a few
regional biobibliographies and seems to have had no plan in selecting
them. I have examined only his references to Italian examples of
this genre, but these are well-known and easily found. In other
fields than history and literature he has usually chosen wisely. He
knows Pritzel's botanical bibliography and Van der Linden's medical
bibliography. He has a blind eye for bibliographies of the religious
orders. As we might expect, De Backer's Jesuit bibliography is
present, but it is surprising to see no mention of Wadding's account
of the Franciscans, who had a large share in the cultural development
of the Spanish colonies in America, or Quétif and Echard's
biobibliographical dictionary of the Dominicans. In brief, Sabin's
book is probably as good a book as can be written in one hundred and
fifty pages. A classified and an alphabetical index of subjects would
have vastly increased its usefulness. Had he made them, he would have
perceived and filled the gaps.
Sabin's purpose in writing _A Bibliography of Bibliographies_ remains
somewhat mysterious. I cannot understand how he failed to see the
necessity of making indexes. How, for example, is the user to
discover the bibliographies of precocious children, mnemonics, and
chess in F. Cancellieri, _Dissertazione intorno agli uomini dotati
ad_ [read _ed_] _a quelli divenuti smemorati, colle biblioteche degli
scrittori sopra gli eruditi precoci, la memoria artificiale ed il
giuoco degli scacchi_ (pp. xxviii-xxix) without a subject index?
We can commend Sabin for enlarging Power's dilettante list into
a reference work. We can commend his care in citing books and his
industry and judgment in choosing them, but accuracy, industry, and
learning are not the only virtues required of a bibliographer. A
bibliographer must be a practical man who sees how his book will be
used.
Sabin's book has remained almost unknown, but the next book to be
discussed has an unenviable reputation. No one has a kind word for
Léon Vallée, _Bibliographie des bibliographies_ (1883-1887), but
in damning it few have effectively supported their opinions. It is
not a good book, but it has perhaps been judged too severely. As an
example of a sweeping and unsupported condemnation I cite what A. G.
S. Josephson wrote in 1901:
This work is of comparatively slight value in spite of the vast
material that it contains. It is very uncritical and gives in
most cases no hint as to the whereabouts of bibliographical
materials in the books referred to. The alphabetical
arrangement by authors, even with the subject index, makes the
work difficult to consult. [It may] be a useful basis for a
more scholarly work.[164]
This is not only Josephson's judgment but also the judgment
that bibliographers have generally passed on Vallée. Reviewers
contemporary with Vallée are perhaps somewhat more favorable in their
estimates, but make their dissatisfaction altogether plain. In an
article suggested by Josephson's bibliography in which this criticism
appears, Vilhelm Grundtvig expressed an equally condemnatory
opinion about Vallée's book.[165] He declares that only Petzholdt's
_Bibliotheca bibliographica_ and Henri Stein's _Manuel_ (which
is yet to be mentioned) deserve mention among bibliographies of
bibliographies. This means passing over Labbé, Teissier, and Peignot,
who were very respectable workers indeed. He goes on to say that
Vallée's book does not even deserve review and is altogether unworthy
of a member of the staff of the greatest library in the world.
Theodore Besterman's judgment (I, p. x) is equally severe:
It is difficult to say much in praise of this compilation,
which has, indeed, been universally condemned. Its general plan
is basically wrong, and it contains far too many irrelevancies,
mistakes, omissions, and second-hand descriptions. To indicate
the general standard of accuracy maintained by Vallée, it is
perhaps enough to say that, although a large part of his volume
was taken bodily from Petzholdt, that scholar's name is spelt
incorrectly throughout the entries under his name.
Vallée's book is unsatisfactory, but I cannot listen to this chorus
without examining the criticisms briefly. Josephson's damning notice
signifies very little. As far as such rough tests as I have used
can show, Vallée does not include an unreasonable proportion of
unsuitable titles. I have examined the first entry on page 25, and
each succeeding twenty-fifth page without finding an instance of
a non-bibliographical title. If Josephson means that Vallée gives
many unnecessary references, I should agree with him. Vallée should
not choose to cite Thomas Stapleton's biography of Sir Thomas More
(p. 519, No. 6048) because it contains bibliographical information
or to give hundreds of similar references. I cannot however agree
with Josephson's remark that Vallée fails to indicate where this
bibliographical information appears in the books cited. It seems
altogether unnecessary to cite a bibliography found in a biography,
an edition of a classical Latin or Greek author, or a general
treatise on some subject, but when Vallée cites it, as he does in
imitation of Petzholdt with distressing frequency, he ordinarily
gives reference to pages. I cannot see that an alphabetical
arrangement according to authors with a subject index is very much
more difficult to use than an alphabetical or classified arrangement
according to subjects with an author index, but in this opinion I
stand alone against general bibliographical practice and shall say
no more here. In any event, Vallée's choice of arrangement seems a
comparatively minor fault, when compared with Petzholdt's and Stein's
choice of a classified arrangement with altogether unsatisfactory
subject indexes and hastily-made author indexes. I speak in Vallée's
behalf partly because of Josephson's arrangement of a bibliography to
be mentioned at the end of this essay. Josephson chose to arrange the
titles in chronological order without providing either an author or a
subject index. No one has ever recommended such an arrangement.
I shall let Vallée's book speak for itself. Like the bibliographers
who immediately preceded and followed him, Vallée struck out for
himself and gave little heed to earlier work. This appears even
in his references to bibliographers of bibliographies. In an
"Avertissement" he recognizes only three predecessors: Tonnelli in
1782, Petzholdt in 1866, and Sabin in 1872 [the date is wrong].
This is a bad start. Francesco Tonnelli's book[166] is a worthless
mixture of a biobibliographical dictionary and a bibliographical
handbook. The biobibliographical information is a disorderly
collection of notes, referring chiefly, but by no means exclusively,
to men whose names begin with the first letters of the alphabet. The
bibliographical information is a miscellany of facts about libraries.
Tonnelli, who has occasionally buried bibliographies in this rubbish
heap, had no intention of writing a bibliography of bibliographies.
I cannot guess what use Vallée made of Tonnelli's queer book. If he
actually consulted it, he should have objected to its disorderliness
and its lack of materials for his needs. Petzholdt's book is, as
Vallée says, a classified bibliography of bibliographies made by a
competent scholar. It is regrettable that he did not fully accept it
as his model. He gives the wrong date for Sabin's book, which began
to appear serially in 1875 and was published in 1877. He does not
make it clear that he has seen and used it.
If we turn to Vallée's references to the works mentioned in
this essay, we find nothing to encourage us. He puts Peignot's
_Répertoire_, Teissier's edition of Labbé's _Bibliotheca
bibliothecarum_, and Labbé's first edition in the _Novae bibliothecae
specimen_[167] of 1653 in a section entitled "Bibliographies
générales." In other words, he does not consider them to be
bibliographies of bibliographies. I cannot see that he cites Labbé's
_Bibliotheca bibliothecarum_ at all. Namur's _Bibliographie_ is in a
section entitled "Bibliologie" (p. 621) with a mistake in its title.
All this indicates, I am afraid, that Vallée did not recognize a
bibliography of bibliographies when he saw it. This grievous fault
is all the more grievous because he emphasizes in his preface the
importance of careful classification.
Vallée is guilty of many more faults. He includes titles that do not
belong in a bibliography of bibliographies.[168] As I have already
said, their number does not seem to me to be very large and many
of them lie on the fringes of bibliography. His descriptions and
entries are incomplete and inaccurate.[169] He cites bibliographies
that can be easily found and scarcely need mention.[170] He fails to
analyze the long subject entries in his index.[171] He makes serious
errors in names, dates, titles, and places of publications and is
careless about editions and the continuations of works that spread
over several years. In his supplement of 1887, he fails to repair the
faults that reviewers had pointed out. More serious than anything
in this long list of faults is, in my opinion, his rash attempt to
survey all bibliographies anew with little or no regard for his
predecessors.
Two things must be said in reduction of this severe judgment on
Vallée. He is the first compiler of a bibliography of bibliographies
to base his work on the books in a particular library and to
indicate, although incompletely and inaccurately, what he has seen
there. He has included many references to bibliographical sections
in non-bibliographical books. Although these and other references of
slight value are numerous, he has accumulated a very large number
of bibliographies. Almost everyone will find something useful
in Vallée's book. The first volume contains 6894 titles, and the
supplement raises the total to 10,246. In a savage criticism[172]
Henri Stein declared that perhaps 2500 titles should have been
omitted and 3000 should be added. This amounts to saying that Vallée
collected about three-quarters of the bibliographies he should have
found. I cannot vouch for the correctness of these estimates but they
may suggest what the book is worth. It is regrettable that Henri
Stein, to whom we now turn, did not give the additional titles as a
supplement instead of writing a new bibliography of bibliographies.
In the _Manuel de bibliographie générale_ (1897) Henri Stein
(b. 1862), a member of the staff of the Bibliothèque Nationale,
offered the world a new bibliography of bibliographies. He calls it
nothing less than a summary of all bibliographies published before
1897,[173] but seems at times to be content to supplement Petzholdt's
_Bibliotheca bibliographica_. He falls far short of completeness
and does not make his intention entirely clear. Although the task
that he undertook is beyond any man's strength, his treatment of his
colleague Vallée does not awaken sympathy for him.
Stein yields to the same temptation to which his predecessors
had succumbed. He includes material of little pertinence to a
bibliography of bibliographies. For example, he could have omitted
a long list (pp. 555-636) of places where books were printed before
1800 and the names of the printers. This information is very useful
to a historian of printing, but has no proper place in Stein's book.
His list of indexes to journals is useful but is also not altogether
pertinent.[174] His long list of printed catalogues of public
libraries, a list which is limited almost exclusively to rather
recent publications, is something of a luxury.[175] Neither logic nor
custom justifies an objection to the inclusion of bibliographies of
individual authors, but Stein could have reduced their number without
loss.[176]
Stein based his classification on Petzholdt's book but introduced
modifications of his own. As Vilhelm Grundtvig correctly says, the
classification is "at times nothing less than amazing, for example,
hippology is under 'sciences pédagogiques' [and] dentistry under
'medicine interne.'"[177] Although he provides a table of contents
and an alphabetical subject index, he has not made his book easy to
use. There is no index of authors' names.
The _Manuel_ does not contain all the available bibliographies or
even a satisfactory collection of the best ones. Stein's surveys of
universal and national bibliographies are inadequate and so, too, are
the sections dealing with philosophy, chemistry, education, sport,
and linguistics.[178] He shows very little interest in bibliographies
printed before 1800. He does not carry out systematically or
successfully an announced intention of expressing critical
judgments.[179] Finally, he is inaccurate in details.[180]
This recital seems to leave little to be said in Stein's favor, but
no bibliographer who has made a serious effort to write a useful book
has ever failed to be helpful. Any list of 5500 bibliographies--the
figure is Besterman's--will contain titles and information worth
noting and remembering. He calls attention to books that other men
have not seen or have neglected to cite. For example, I have not seen
"Ahm. Zeki-Bey, _Elmevsonat_ (Boulak, 1904)," which he describes (p.
264) as a bibliography of Arabic encyclopedias, mentioned elsewhere.
We owe to him the interesting and important fact that the unpublished
manuscript of Mazzuchelli's enormous work, _Gli scrittori d'Italia_,
is in the Vatican Library.[181] He adds many titles to those cited
by Petzholdt and Vallée. I lay aside the _Manuel_ with the regret
that Stein's zeal has given us a less useful book than we might have
hoped for. Had he named, as I have suggested, the three thousand
bibliographies lacking in Vallée and had he continued the collection
from Vallée's supplement of 1887 to his own publication in 1897, he
would have given us an invaluable book. What we have is one more
demonstration of the unwillingness of bibliographers in his century
to join hands with their predecessors and contemporaries.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] For identification and description of these bibliographies see
Theodore Besterman, _The Beginnings of Systematic Bibliography_ (2d
ed.; [Oxford] and London, [1936]) and Petzholdt.
[127] He probably consulted the many treatises on what was
then called _historia litteraria_, but these were historical
accounts of the development of the various disciplines rather
than bibliographies. Two brief guides to these great specialized
bibliographies are well hidden. They are Benjamin Hederich, _Notitia
auctorum antiqua & media, oder Leben, Schrifften, Editiones und
Censuren der Biblischen und entweder noch gantz oder auch nur in
considerablen Fragmentis vorhandenen fürnehmsten Griechischen
und Lateinischen Kirchen-Scholastischen- und Profan-Scribenten_
(Wittenberg, 1714), "Einleitung," pp. 2-144 and G. C. Hamberger,
_Zuverlässige Nachrichten von den vornehmsten Schriftstellern vom
Anfange der Welt bis 1500_ (4 v.; Lemgo, 1756-1764), I, 1-54,
"Erste vorläufige Abhandlung. Von der Kentnis der Schriftsteller."
These very interesting and instructive compilations are selective
guides to the best bibliographies and are intended to aid students.
They are limited almost exclusively to bibliographies of classical
Greek and Latin literature, church history, and the related
disciplines. Since the books in which they appear deal only with
authors and subjects belonging to the period before 1500 and the
bibliographies are similarly limited in scope, the usefulness of the
bibliographies is obviously confined to giving information about the
best current reference works in a few fields. No doubt the abundant
bibliographical information in such a work as Heinrich Zedler,
_Grosses vollständiges Universal Lexikon aller Wissenschaften und
Künste_ (68 v.; Halle, 1732-1754) was sufficient for most scholarly
needs.
[128] See _Bibliotheca selectissima_ (Amsterdam, 1743), I, 340, No.
2985. There is a copy of this catalogue in the Newberry Library.
[129] For a discussion of these difficulties see H. B. Van Hoesen's
review of the _Bibliographic Index_ in the _Library Quarterly_, X
(1940), 272-274.
[130] See a review by A. S., _Heidelbergische Jahrbücher der
Literatur_, 1812, pp. 644-656. The reviewer points out inaccuracies
of various kinds, complains bitterly about the inconveniences of the
alphabetical arrangement, and cites many lacking titles.
[131] Pp. 232-236.
[132] Pp. 249-252.
[133] Pp. 275-286.
[134] Pp. 470-472.
[135] Pp. 450-452.
[136] Pp. 263-274.
[137] Pp. 409-419.
[138] P. 427.
[139] He would have removed publishers' catalogues (p. 97 [Estienne]
and p. 118 [Plantin]), a weekly catalogue of the booktrade (p. 103),
various catalogues of libraries owned by institutions (pp. 101, 105).
The last of these should have been put in the list on pp. 40-75.
[140] This section, which does not include biobibliographies,
contains 1861 titles. There are 586 biobibliographies in the
following, fifth section.
[141] For a description of this book, which was published in only
twelve copies, see Petzholdt, p. 113. See an enlargement of a
microfilm in the Newberry Library.
[142] See II, 26, No. 483; II, 131, No. 390; II, 121, No. 378.
[143] See II, 119, No. 7, where he cites "Sanderus, A. de
scriptoribus Flandriae lib. III. Antv. 1624, in.-4.," but omits _De
Brugensibus eruditionis fama claris libri duo_ (Antwerp, 1624) and
_De Gandavensibus eruditionis fama claris libri tres_ (Antwerp, 1624).
[144] See II, 14-17, & 4, Nos. 268-312.
[145] See II, 140-167, Nos. 131-720.
[146] See "Bibliographies of Bibliographies," _The Bulletin of the
Bibliographical Society of America_, III (1911), 50-53.
[147] For brief comment on these bibliographies see below.
[148] In the eighteenth century J. M. Francke, who compiled the great
_Catalogus Bibliothecae Bunavianae_ (3 v.; Leipzig, 1750-1756), came,
with the Bünau library, to the Dresden library. In the first quarter
of the nineteenth century F. A. Ebert completed the _Allgemeines
bibliographisches Lexikon_ in the same library.
[149] Pp. 20-65.
[150] Leipzig, 1850; 2d ed., Brussels, 1854. These are many later
indexes to biographies. See, as examples, Max Arnim, _Internationale
Personalbiographie_, 1850-1935 (Leipzig, 1936) and a second edition
(Leipzig, 1944-1952) that has been expanded backwards and forwards
to cover the years between 1800 and 1943 and Luigi Ferrari,
_Onomasticon. Repertorio biobibliografico degli scrittori italiani
dal 1500 al 1850_ (Milan, 1947).
[151] I do not see what principle guides him in the choice of
bibliographies published in the editions of an author's works.
He does not include, for example, a very curious bibliography in
Marcus Meibomius (ed.), Diogenes Laertius, _De vitis, dogmatibus et
apophthegmatibus clarorum philosophorum_ (Amsterdam, 1692). It is
the first bibliography, as far as I know, to give systematically
the locations of the books cited. The first example of a reference
to the place where a book may be found is, I believe, in Giovanni
Nevizzano (Johannes Nevizzanus), _Quaestiones_ (ed. L. Gómez;
Venice, 1525). I quote it from Wilhelm Fuchs, "Die Anfänge
juristischer Fachbibliographie," _Archiv für Bibliographie, Buch- und
Bibliothekswesen_, II (1929), 49.
[152] See, for example, a list of men named Alard (p. 167).
[153] "Petzholdt redivivus. Zur Theorie und Praxis eines allgemeinen
internationalen Bibliographienverzeichnisses," _Zentralblatt für
Bibliothekswesen_, LXIV (1950), 413-438.
[154] I am of course aware that the _Guide to Reference Books_
originally written by Alice Kroeger has passed through many editions
and has had two subsequent editors. Its well-deserved success is no
very strong argument for the usefulness of a classified arrangement.
The _Guide_ is, it must be recognized, a very special sort of
reference work. It has been intended from the beginning to serve
reference librarians and has been improved and enlarged for that use.
In other words, it has always had very limited and highly trained
readers familiar with its special methods. The latest edition is by
Constance M. Winchell (7th ed.; Chicago, 1951).
[155] _Prosopographia & heroum atque illustrium virorum totius
Germaniae_ (Basel, 1656-1566); _Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch_ (Basel,
1567-1570). The two editions differ somewhat in contents.
[156] Third ed.; Berlin, 1930, pp. 186-200.
[157] Arnold Kuczynski, _Thesaurus libellorum reformationis
illustrantium_ (Leipzig, 1870. ICN; MH. Supplement, 1874. MH); Oswald
Weigel (comp.), _Bibliothek J. K. F. Knaake. Katalog der Sammlung von
Reformationsschriften des Begründers der Weimarer Lutherausgabe_ (6
pts. and list of prices. Leipzig, 1908. DLC [6 pts.]; ICN [complete];
MH [pt. 1]).
[158] These are, respectively: _Bücherschatz der deutschen
National-Litteratur des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts_ (Berlin, 1854.
CU; MH); _Verzeichniss von Büchern vorzüglich aus der Freih. v.
Meuse-bach'schen Bibliothek_ (2 v.; Berlin, 1855, 1856. CU; MH);
Karl Faber und Emil Hirsch, _Sammlung Viktor Manheimer. Deutsche
Barockliteratur von Opitz bis Brockes_ (Munich, 1927). The Prussian
state library bought the Heyse and Meusebach collections.
[159] Examples of catalogues used for such purposes are the
_Bibliotheca Heberiana_ (13 pts.; London, 1834-1837. The thirteenth
part was published in Brussels. ICN [pts. 1-12]); the Robert Hoe
catalogue (5 v.; New York, 1911-1912); and the A. H. Huth catalogue
(6 v.; London, 1911-1920).
[160] _Illustrated Catalogue of the Notable Collection of Miss Susan
Minns..._ (New York: American Art Association, 1922. ICN; MH).
There are several other important catalogues of this sort in the
bibliography of the Dance of Death.
[161] _A Bibliography of Emblem Books_, Studies in
Seventeenth-Century Imagery, 2=Studies of the Warburg Institute, 3
(London, 1947).
[162] _Historisches Jahrbuch_, XL (1920), 49.
[163] See p. 712. This pamphlet (ICN) is an anonymous catalogue of
the library of Tommaso Giuseppe Farsetti. G. A. E. Bogeng calls it a
model piece of work; see _Jahrbuch für Bücherkunde und Liebhaberei_,
II (1910), 44. In his treatise _Die grossen Bibliophilen. Geschichte
der Büchersammler und ihre Sammlungen_ (Leipzig, 1922), III, 30,
Bogeng names Giacomo or Jacopo Morelli (1745-1819) as the author.
Gustave Brunet, who has seen the _Catalogo_, says: "Ce petit volume
de 207 pages offre l'inventaire raisonnée d'une collection fort
importante de rarétés dramatiques appartenant au bailli Farsetti.
De notes nombreuses et parfois d'une certain étendue lui donnent du
prix" (_Dictionnaire de bibliographie catholique_ [Paris, 1860], col.
631). Curiously enough, Frati's account of Italian book-collectors,
bibliographers, and librarians does not include Farsetti and makes
no mention of this and other catalogues of the Farsetti library in
the article on Jacopo Morelli; see _Dizionario biobibliografico dei
bibliotecari e bibliofili italiani dal sec. XIV al XIX_ (Florence,
1933), pp. 379-384.
[164] _Bibliography of Bibliographies_ (Chicago, 1901), pp. 25-26.
[165] _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, XX (1903), 406-407.
[166] _Biblioteca bibliografica antica e moderna d'ogni classe e
d'ogni natione_ (2 v.; Guastella, 1782-1783: MH). Those who cite this
as a bibliography of bibliographies cannot have looked beyond the
title page.
[167] He cites this book by the title _Speciminis antiquarum
lectionum supplementa decem_, which is the title of the appendix to
Labbé's book. See Chapter II, n. 7. Did Vallée actually see the work
that he is citing?
[168] See, as examples, a list of characters performed on the stage
by Jehn Bannister (No. 31) and a book on how to tell a Caxton (No.
844). Checklists of batrachia (No. 1687 _bis_) and other zoological
genera (several entries after No. 1712) are accepted by Besterman,
although he does not include these particular works because they are
not separately published books.
[169] The description of the _Catalogue de la bibliothèque du roy_
(No. 1336) is incorrect and incomplete, Nos. 2307 and 2398 _bis_
should have been entered under the author's or the compiler's names.
Francesco Agostino della Chiesa di Saluzzo (No. 2526) should not be
under "F." Growaeus Sudovolgiensis (No. 2875) is William Crowe; see
Donald Wing, _A Short-Title Catalogue_, C 7868. A cross-reference to
Danz (No. 783) is needed under Walch (No. 6631).
[170] Bibliographies of classical authors found in standard editions
might have been omitted; see No. 2652 (Aulus Gellius), Nos. 5897 and
5898 (Seneca). Bibliographies found in biographies (No. 4048) and
bibliographies in doctoral dissertations (No. 2923) could be omitted
without serious loss.
[171] See "Allemagne" (pp. 600-602), "Amérique" (pp. 603-604), and
"Imprimerie" (pp. 685-687).
[172] Cited in the Bibliography below.
[173] "La synthèse de toutes les bibliographies publiées jusqu'à la
fin de l'année 1896" (Introduction, p. [i]).
[174] See pp. 637-710. For a bibliography of such indexes see Vilhelm
Grundtvig, _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, XX (1903), 428-430,
438-439. See such recent compilations as Norma Olin Ireland, _An
Index to Indexes. A subject bibliography of published indexes_.
Useful Reference Series, No. 67 (Boston, 1942); D. C. Haskell,
_Checklist of Cumulative Indexes to Individual Periodicals in the New
York Public Library_. (New York, 1942).
[175] See pp. 711-768. See a list of similar bibliographies in
Grundtvig, pp. 439-440.
[176] See pp. 497-554. Compare my criticism of Petzholdt's list of
bibliographies of individual authors, pp. 79-81, above.
[177] See Vilhelm Grundtvig, _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, XX
(1903), 409, n. 2.
[178] Grundtvig, pp. 409-411.
[179] For example, he calls Bigmore and Wyman, _A Bibliography of
Printing_, a rather poor piece of work (p. 438), but it has not yet
been replaced and was recently found worthy of reprinting.
[180] He commends Johann Albert Fabricius, but fails to note that
the last three volumes of the _Bibliotheca graeca_ were not included
in Harles's edition and that the first edition of the _Bibliotheca
latina_ was published in 1697 and not in 1728. See Stein, pp.
244-245. Petzholdt gives full and accurate information about these
books.
[181] See p. 302. He might have added a reference to Enrico Narducci,
"Intorno alia vita del conte Giammaria Mazzuchelli ed alla collezione
de' suoi manoscritti ora posseduta della biblioteca vaticana,"
_Giornale Arcadico_, N.S. LII (1867). I have not seen this article,
which is said to extend to sixty-four pages.