A
History
of
Bibliographies of
Bibliographies

Copyright 1955, by Archer Taylor.

For
Stanley Pargellis

[vii]

Preface

In the following essay I use the term "bibliography ofbibliographies" only for works of universal scope. AccordinglyI discuss neither such national bibliographies as GiuseppeOttino and Giuseppe Fumagalli's Bibliotheca bibliographicaitaliana (Rome, 1889) nor such special lists asGabriel Peignot's Répertoire des bibliographies spéciales(Paris, 1808) and A List of Bibliographies of Special Subjects(Chicago, 1902) issued by the John Crerar Library.I exclude also lists of reference works.

Other groups of books have demanded less arbitraryhandling. In general, I have ruled out chapters on the bibliographyof bibliographies in handbooks of library science.By the same token, I have included neither classified librarycatalogues, public or private, nor catalogues of privatelibraries owned by scholars or bibliographers in specialfields. Finally I discuss only those subject indexes thatwere published before the bibliography of bibliographieswas recognized as an independent scholarly undertaking,such as Conrad Gesner's Pandectae (1548) and IsraelSpach's Nomenclator (1598). All later subject indexes inwhich the bibliography of bibliographies is subsidiary toother purposes, have been excluded.

The bibliographies cited by short titles or the author'snames are listed in full in the Bibliography. I have givenlocations for rare books only, and then only for the copiesthat I have used. I have not tried to identify the workscited in quotations illustrating bibliographical method or[viii]to correct errors in such quoted titles, except when the bookis difficult to identify or when a correction is pertinent tothe discussion of the writer's bibliographical technique.

Various friends have generously read this essay in manuscriptand have offered suggestions for its improvement.I am greatly indebted to them for this assistance. Dr. ArnoldWeinberger of Harvard University Library has givenme general advice and many comments on details. TaylorStarck of Harvard University, Lawrence S. Thompson, Directorof the University of Kentucky Library, and Hugh G.Dick of the University of California at Los Angeles havegiven me good counsel. Anne E. Markley of the Universityof California, School of Librarianship read the manuscriptwith painstaking care and helped me to avoid many errors.

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