Essays in Librarianship and BibliographyGarnett, Richard
Science
Essays in Librarianship and Bibliography
Garnett, Richard
Bibliography -- Methodology; British Museum; Library science
his grandson, they had been only partially published, after a long delay
and with suppressions which exposed William Temple Franklin to the
unjust imputation of having disposed of a great part of them to the
British Government. In fact they had been put aside and forgotten after
Temple Franklin's death in Paris, and had eventually come into the
possession of an old friend of his who repeatedly offered them for sale,
but could find no customer, from the universal belief that they had
already been printed and published. Mr. Stevens acquired them in 1851,
and after thirty years' delay, and spending a thousand pounds over and
above the original price in cataloguing, binding and adding to their
number, ultimately disposed of them to the United States Government.
Their eventful history, involving a complete vindication of Temple
Franklin and the British Government, is told in a privately printed
volume of his own, accompanied with beautifully engraved portraits and a
valuable bibliography of books by and concerning Franklin. The
collection is also the subject of an article in the _Century_ for June
1886.
Notwithstanding the engrossing nature of his pursuits, Mr. Stevens was
always striving to aid bibliography by his pen. For this, in addition to
his knowledge and acumen, and a cultivated taste which served him
admirably on questions of typography, he possessed the qualifications of
untiring industry and great facility of composition. He did much, and
would have done more but for the sanguine temper which led him to
undertake more than he could complete, and the fastidiousness which
indisposed him to let work go out of his hands while anything seemed
lacking to perfection. He left several bibliographical or biographical
memoirs wanting hardly anything of completeness but the final
imprimatur. Among them may be mentioned a life of Thomas Heriot, the
mathematician, and a friend of Ralegh; an essay on Columbus's
administration in the West Indies; and an account of the newly
discovered globe by John Schoner. Another work of which he frequently
spoke, a volume of British Museum reminiscences supplementary to Mr.
Fagan's life of Sir Anthony Panizzi, existed, it must be feared, only as
a project. It would have required leisure which he never possessed. The
most purely literary and perhaps the most important of his publications
was his _Historical and Geographical Notes on the earliest discoveries
in America_, a subject on which he was most enthusiastic. His catalogue
of the American literature in the British Museum to the year 1856 is
also a valuable publication, as are likewise his _Bibles in the Caxton
Exhibition_, already mentioned, and his catalogues of the
bibliographical curiosities relating to America in his own possession,
issued under the title of _Historical Nuggets_, in 1862. A second series
was in course of publication at his death. He had devoted great
attention to the reproduction of title-pages and frontispieces by
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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