A History of Bibliographies of BibliographiesTaylor, Archer
History
A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies
Taylor, Archer
Bibliography of bibliographies -- History
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.
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