Founded in 1892, The Bibliographical Society[1] is the senior learned society in the UK dealing with the study of the book and its history. The Society promotes and encourages study and research in historical, analytical, descriptive and textual bibliography through its lectures, fellowships and bursaries, and publishing its quarterly journal, The Library.
The first fifty years of the Bibliographical Society were documented in the book The Bibliographical Society, 1892–1942: Studies in Retrospect.[2]The Book Encompassed, a volume of essays edited by Peter Davison marking the Society's centenary was published in 1992.[3]
History
The Bibliographical Society was founded on 15 July 1892, with W. A. Copinger, a lawyer and book collector, serving as its first President after proposing its formation at a Library Association meeting the previous year. The Society was established to promote study and research in historical, analytical, descriptive, and textual bibliography, as well as the history of printing, publishing, bookselling, bookbinding, and collecting. By the outbreak of the First World War, membership had grown sufficiently for the Society to consider limiting it to 325, though this proposal was abandoned. In 1919, the Society took over The Library, a journal which had existed independently since 1888, and continues to publish it quarterly.[4]
The Society's most significant achievement is the Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland & Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad 1475–1640, compiled by A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave and published in 1926. A comprehensive revision by W. A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson, and Katharine Pantzer appeared in three volumes between 1976 and 1991. Other major publications include W. W. Greg's four-volume Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration (1939–1959), the Cathedral Libraries Catalogue, and dictionaries of printers and booksellers. The Society took over The Library journal in 1919, which it continues to publish quarterly.[5]
The Society's early work was shaped by three figures whom F. P. Wilson termed "a happy band of brothers": A. W. Pollard, W. W. Greg, and R. B. McKerrow. Their contributions to what became known as the "New Bibliography" profoundly influenced literary scholarship in the twentieth century. Since 1929, the Society has awarded its medal to fourty-eight scholars for outstanding contributions to the field.
Objectives
The objectives of the Society are:
to promote and encourage study and research in the fields of:
historical, analytical, descriptive and textual bibliography
The Society's archive is housed at the Bodleian Library and may be used by scholars and members of the Society.[7]
Publications
The Society has published a journal since 1893, originally entitled Transactions of the Bibliographical Society. In 1920 it took over publication of The Library (issued since 1889) and adopted that as the main title of the Transactions. (The Library was founded in 1889 by John Young Walker MacAlister.[8]) The different series of the Transactions and The Library are:
Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, vol. 1–15 (1893–1919)
The Library, vol. 1–10 (1889–1898)
The Library, Second/New series, vol. 1–10 (1900–1910)
The Library, Third series, vol. 1–10 (1910–1919)
The Library, Fourth series, vol. 1–26 (1920–1946)
The Library, Fifth series, vol. 1–33 (1946–1978)
The Library, Sixth series, vol. 1–21 (1979–1999)
The Library, Seventh series, vol. 1– (2000– )
The Library ( ISSN0024-2160; 1744-8581) is a quarterly journal and is issued free to members who also receive a copy of all books published by the Society.
In 1937, Harry Carter, Ellic Howe, Alfred F. Johnson, Stanley Morison and Graham Pollard started to produce a list of all known pre-1800 type specimens. The list was published in The Library in 1942.[9] However, because of the war, many libraries at the European continent were no longer accessible.
Gold medal
The Society occasionally awards a gold medal for "distinguished services to bibliography to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the development of the subject and the furtherance of the Society's aims."[10]
↑The correct full name is "The Bibliographical Society"; as the first such, it is distinguished from other similar societies by the others including some geographical identifier (eg, "The Bibliographical Society of America").
↑The Bibliographical Society, 1892–1942: Studies in Retrospect (London, 1949).
↑Peter Davison, ed., The Book Encompassed: Studies in Twentieth-century Bibliography (Cambridge, 1992) ISBN978-0-521-41878-2.
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