-------
In arranging a number of rules, it is difficult to
please every reader. I have frequently been unable to
satisfy myself; and therefore, cannot expect that the
arrangement which I have at last adopted will give
universal satisfaction.—W. LENNIE, The principles of
English grammar ... 34th ed., Edinb., 1854, p. 4.
Cataloguers may comment upon, but should never alter
what it has been deemed right to state on the title
page of a book by those who have framed it.—Art of
making catalogues, &c. [by A. Crestadoro], 1856, p.
14.
In cataloguing or describing a book six points at least should be kept
in view as necessary to its identification.[19]
(1.) Title.
(2.) Name of author, and sometimes description.
(3.) Place of publication.
(4.) Publisher’s name, and sometimes address.
(5.) The date of publication.
(6.) The size.
Footnote 19:
The student may refer to the useful little pamphlet above quoted,
entitled: The art of making catalogues of libraries, or a method to
obtain in a short time, a most perfect, complete, and satisfactory
printed catalogue of the British Museum library, by a reader therein
[Dr. Crestadoro], Lond. 1856, p. 38.
If full titles (that is, an exact transcript of the title from beginning
to the end), are given, it will only be necessary for the cataloguer to
supply in its proper, or most suitable place, such of the above
information as is not on the title-page.
If abbreviations be adopted several considerations arise.
(1.) As to so much of the title as occurs before the author’s name we
have already said that the first few words should be copied word for
word, and afterwards every omission should be denoted by dots.
(2.) The name of the author should not be abbreviated, if it renders it
difficult to distinguish between two with the same initials. If the
author’s qualifications are omitted or abbreviated, dots ... of omission
should be inserted. A description after a name is often very important
and useful in determining the degree of credit to be attached to the
work, but they are frequently so numerous that they are too long for
most catalogues.
Works in more than one volume generally have the number on the title, as
“In three volumes, vol 1.” Take no notice of “Vol I.,” but invariably
state the number of volumes in the order in which it occurs on the
title-page. The number of volumes, however, is not always stated; in
some works each volume simply has “Vol I,” or “Vol II,” on the title,
when this is so, the number of volumes should be stated after the date
thus: “1873, in three volumes, octavo.” The reader would then know
whether the number of volumes was stated on the title or not.
There will be cases where this rule will not sufficiently indicate the
fact, as for instance, when the first does not, but the second does,
state the number of volumes. A note will meet this case, if necessary.
It may appear to some that so trifling a matter is unworthy of note, but
with this the cataloguer has nothing to do. His business is to note
facts however trivial, whether anybody should ever require them is not
in his province.
(3.) Place of publication. Several places of publication are frequently
given in the imprint of a book, when this is the case, the first place
should, at all events, be given, and if the book is not printed as well
as published there, the place where it is printed should be stated.
(4.) The Publisher’s name we seldom find in any list of books. I never
recollect to have seen it in any catalogue of a library, and in very few
bibliographical works. And yet it is often of great importance. In
cataloguing works without the author’s name it should seldom if ever be
omitted, however much the title is abbreviated. The publisher’s address
may often be added with advantage, especially in cases where he is
little known. For many firms who have been issuing works from the same
house for a century or even longer, it seems superfluous.[20]
Footnote 20:
I must remind the student that I am only writing for present century
books, I have no experience of cataloguing old books.
Both name and address of publishers may be abbreviated without marks of
omission, a rule having been made to that effect, so that the reader may
be apprised of the fact. Some small elementary works have as many as ten
or fifteen places and double that number of publishers in the imprint,
these of course would not be given in full unless with some special
object.
The publisher’s name when well known is also important as frequently
giving a character, or guarantee, if not of the literary worth of a
book, at all events of its sincerity.
If the publisher is also the author, but does not signify that fact, the
book must be considered anonymous. The publisher’s name (that is the
author’s) must be repeated, as would be the case if written by another
person.
Privately printed[21] works are frequently issued without the name of a
publisher or bookseller, though less frequently without that of a
printer, which if not on the title should be supplied in parenthesis or
in a note.
Footnote 21:
For examples the student can refer to the only English work on the
subject, of which two editions have been issued, viz., Martin’s
Bibliographical catalogue of privately printed books. It is necessary
to have both editions in consequence of the death of the author,
unfortunately interrupting the completion of the second.
(5.) The date of publication, if not on the title, will like the
author’s name, be frequently found in some other part of the book. It
should then be supplied after the last word on the title in parenthesis.
If not in the book, it should be put between brackets [ ], and if
uncertain with a note of interrogation.
Stereotyped books are generally without dates of publication for certain
commercial reasons. Only superficial readers are duped by the artifice,
for the first object of the literary student would be to determine
approximately the date of issue. When the preface is not dated it is no
doubt as often through thoughtlessness as intention.
In quoting a work that has passed through numerous editions, it is often
useful to give the date of the first.
There is a practice amongst publishers of post dating books issued
towards the end of a year.[22] This practice will account for the dates
of books in some bibliothecas, biographies and catalogues, sometimes
being a year earlier than the date on the book. The title having been
copied from an advertisement or a review of the work apparently before
publication. When known to the cataloguer the actual year of issue
should be supplied in brackets immediately after the date of the title.
Footnote 22:
See the article referred to (p. 19) by Prof. De Morgan, in the
Companion to the Almanac.
(6.) With the different descriptions of sizes of books Professor De
Morgan was so exasperated that after giving descriptions of how the
sheets of a book are folded he says, “The words _folio_, _quarto_,
_octavo_, _duodecimo_, _decimo-octavo_, refer (in his book) entirely to
size, as completely as in a modern sale catalogue, the maker of which
never looks at the inside of a book to tell its form. All the very
modern distinctions of _imperial_, _royal_, _crown_, _atlas_, _demy_,
&c., &c., &c., I have relinquished to paper-makers and publishers, who
alone are able to understand them.”[23]
Footnote 23:
Arithmetical Books, p. xii.
All the words in use to describe sizes are useless. They convey no
definite idea to the reader, for the simple reason that nothing definite
as to size is meant. The only definite meaning is that the paper is
folded into certain divisions, and not that the paper or print is of a
particular size. A quarto is often the size of an octavo, and an octavo
the size of a quarto, duodecimo, or anything else. Nevertheless though
not certain, the terms do in most cases, enable us to guess at the
probable or approximate size. The only way to be certain of the size is
to state it in inches.[24] Probably few literary men would put up with
the trouble of measuring.
Footnote 24:
This plan is advocated in a work I cannot too strongly recommend. It
is indispensable to every librarian. The learned author thoroughly
studied all the various systems in vogue, and founds almost a code for
the cataloguer upon them. It is the:—Smithsonian Report on the
construction of catalogues of libraries and their publication by means
of separate stereotyped titles, with rules and examples, by Charles C.
Jewett, Librarian of the Smithsonian Institution, second edition.
Washington, published by the Smithsonian Institution, 1853, 8vo, pp.
xii., 96. Since the above was written Mr. Cutter’s Rules have appeared
(see p. 11), and should be referred to.
Compilers of Catalogues of modern books may content themselves in most
cases with the terms at present in use.[25]
Footnote 25:
For what these are, and how to know them, I must refer the reader to
the Smithsonian Report, previously quoted, or to a note by Charles
Naylor on “the size of a book” in Notes and Queries for 10 Feb., 1872,
4th s., ix. p. 122.
Novels are generally described in the advertisements as “post octavo,”
which is not octavo at all, but duodecimo. The mis-description is of
little importance, for everybody knows about the size of the modern
three volume novel, a little larger now than at the beginning of the
century.
It is annoying that so small a matter as the size of a book should
occupy so much space. It has always been a subject of difficulty. A
bookseller as such, in his sale catalogues, will describe a book as
12mo, but when he compiles a bibliographical list he will describe it
correctly as octavo, though the actual size is what is looked upon as
duodecimo.
These points are strictly necessary for ordinary catalogues, but they
will not satisfy all enquiries, for we cannot tell from them whether it
is a book or a pamphlet that is described. It is therefore desirable to
add the number of pages. In the paging we have as much variety as in the
sizes, authors, publishers, and printers, not having the slightest
thought for bibliographers, and the infinite trouble of collation.
A book should be paged in as simple a manner as possible. This is a rule
that has never been attended to, and so long as authors do not know
their own minds never can be. If the printer begins the paging
regularly, and the author thinks irregularly, and recollects something
that has been left out, irregular paging will be the result.[26]
Footnote 26:
The most disorderly book I know in this respect is:—A universal
alphabet grammar and language, ... by George Edmonds, ... [1856]
quarto:—The following is the collation. Its length would generally
preclude its being given in a bibliotheca. First we have the preface
vii pages, then a table of contents vii pages; the introduction 34
pages, a half-title unpaged, then 152 pages, then another half-title
unpaged, then pp. 44 and iii., then corrigenda pp. ix., then a
half-title and “the Dictionary,” forming a third of the book entirely
unpaged, then the addenda paged separately pp. 3. Sometimes the
figures of paging are at the side, sometimes in the middle, sometimes
at the top and sometimes at the bottom! Timperley in his “Printer’s
Manual” (1838) p. 18, says, “Running titles may be set to an index,
but folios are seldom put unless with a view to recommend the book for
its extraordinary number of pages; for as an index does not refer to
its own matter by figures, they are needless in this case.” When the
trouble that a variety of pagings gives the bibliographer, is
considered, it is to be hoped that the simplicity I recommend will be
adopted as much as possible.
Always count from the very first printed page belonging to the book,
excluding advertisements. Give the paging as printed, that is, in the
same characters. If leaves occur unpaged, either before those paged or
after, use arabian numerals to denote those unpaged.
Sometimes an octavo book begins with, say xii. numbered pages and then
occur four unnumbered, and then we have page 1 on signature B, numbered
consecutively to page 253, and three pages of appendix and errata
beyond. Describe it thus: octavo pp. xii., and 4, and 253, and 3. But if
4 and 3 are numbered with roman numerals, it should be thus:—octavo, pp.
xii., and iv., 253, iii., because this is more accurate. We use the same
kind of numerals used in the book. It is, however, not a matter of much
moment, provided the correct number of pages is given in the collation.
I do not use the sign plus (xii.+iv.+iii.) because it makes the figures
look more uninteresting, and signs enough occur in the titles
themselves.
The price at which a book is published is often unascertainable, and it
is useful to insert it, though it has nothing to do with its literary or
scientific value. But in this as in every other particular it is
impossible to say what the student may require, and its omission might
make a man of genius waste precious hours which it is the special object
of the true bibliographer to save.
If the price is mentioned on the title page, accuracy requires that it
be given in its regular order, whether at the beginning or end of the
title. Instances will be found in the list of works by a lady at the
end.
------------------------------------------------------------------------