Chapter IV: The Bibliography of Bibliographies Begins Anew (2)

This work is of comparatively slight value in spite of the vast
material that it contains. It is very uncritical and gives in
most cases no hint as to the whereabouts of bibliographical
materials in the books referred to. The alphabetical
arrangement by authors, even with the subject index, makes the
work difficult to consult. [It may] be a useful basis for a
more scholarly work.[164]

This is not only Josephson's judgment but also the judgment that bibliographers have generally passed on Vallée. Reviewers contemporary with Vallée are perhaps somewhat more favorable in their estimates, but make their dissatisfaction altogether plain. In an article suggested by Josephson's bibliography in which this criticism appears, Vilhelm Grundtvig expressed an equally condemnatory opinion about Vallée's book.[165] He declares that only Petzholdt's _Bibliotheca bibliographica_ and Henri Stein's _Manuel_ (which is yet to be mentioned) deserve mention among bibliographies of bibliographies. This means passing over Labbé, Teissier, and Peignot, who were very respectable workers indeed. He goes on to say that Vallée's book does not even deserve review and is altogether unworthy of a member of the staff of the greatest library in the world. Theodore Besterman's judgment (I, p. x) is equally severe:

It is difficult to say much in praise of this compilation,
which has, indeed, been universally condemned. Its general plan
is basically wrong, and it contains far too many irrelevancies,
mistakes, omissions, and second-hand descriptions. To indicate
the general standard of accuracy maintained by Vallée, it is
perhaps enough to say that, although a large part of his volume
was taken bodily from Petzholdt, that scholar's name is spelt
incorrectly throughout the entries under his name.

Vallée's book is unsatisfactory, but I cannot listen to this chorus without examining the criticisms briefly. Josephson's damning notice signifies very little. As far as such rough tests as I have used can show, Vallée does not include an unreasonable proportion of unsuitable titles. I have examined the first entry on page 25, and each succeeding twenty-fifth page without finding an instance of a non-bibliographical title. If Josephson means that Vallée gives many unnecessary references, I should agree with him. Vallée should not choose to cite Thomas Stapleton's biography of Sir Thomas More (p. 519, No. 6048) because it contains bibliographical information or to give hundreds of similar references. I cannot however agree with Josephson's remark that Vallée fails to indicate where this bibliographical information appears in the books cited. It seems altogether unnecessary to cite a bibliography found in a biography, an edition of a classical Latin or Greek author, or a general treatise on some subject, but when Vallée cites it, as he does in imitation of Petzholdt with distressing frequency, he ordinarily gives reference to pages. I cannot see that an alphabetical arrangement according to authors with a subject index is very much more difficult to use than an alphabetical or classified arrangement according to subjects with an author index, but in this opinion I stand alone against general bibliographical practice and shall say no more here. In any event, Vallée's choice of arrangement seems a comparatively minor fault, when compared with Petzholdt's and Stein's choice of a classified arrangement with altogether unsatisfactory subject indexes and hastily-made author indexes. I speak in Vallée's behalf partly because of Josephson's arrangement of a bibliography to be mentioned at the end of this essay. Josephson chose to arrange the titles in chronological order without providing either an author or a subject index. No one has ever recommended such an arrangement.

I shall let Vallée's book speak for itself. Like the bibliographers who immediately preceded and followed him, Vallée struck out for himself and gave little heed to earlier work. This appears even in his references to bibliographers of bibliographies. In an "Avertissement" he recognizes only three predecessors: Tonnelli in 1782, Petzholdt in 1866, and Sabin in 1872 [the date is wrong]. This is a bad start. Francesco Tonnelli's book[166] is a worthless mixture of a biobibliographical dictionary and a bibliographical handbook. The biobibliographical information is a disorderly collection of notes, referring chiefly, but by no means exclusively, to men whose names begin with the first letters of the alphabet. The bibliographical information is a miscellany of facts about libraries. Tonnelli, who has occasionally buried bibliographies in this rubbish heap, had no intention of writing a bibliography of bibliographies. I cannot guess what use Vallée made of Tonnelli's queer book. If he actually consulted it, he should have objected to its disorderliness and its lack of materials for his needs. Petzholdt's book is, as Vallée says, a classified bibliography of bibliographies made by a competent scholar. It is regrettable that he did not fully accept it as his model. He gives the wrong date for Sabin's book, which began to appear serially in 1875 and was published in 1877. He does not make it clear that he has seen and used it.

If we turn to Vallée's references to the works mentioned in this essay, we find nothing to encourage us. He puts Peignot's _Répertoire_, Teissier's edition of Labbé's _Bibliotheca bibliothecarum_, and Labbé's first edition in the _Novae bibliothecae specimen_[167] of 1653 in a section entitled "Bibliographies générales." In other words, he does not consider them to be bibliographies of bibliographies. I cannot see that he cites Labbé's _Bibliotheca bibliothecarum_ at all. Namur's _Bibliographie_ is in a section entitled "Bibliologie" (p. 621) with a mistake in its title. All this indicates, I am afraid, that Vallée did not recognize a bibliography of bibliographies when he saw it. This grievous fault is all the more grievous because he emphasizes in his preface the importance of careful classification.

Vallée is guilty of many more faults. He includes titles that do not belong in a bibliography of bibliographies.[168] As I have already said, their number does not seem to me to be very large and many of them lie on the fringes of bibliography. His descriptions and entries are incomplete and inaccurate.[169] He cites bibliographies that can be easily found and scarcely need mention.[170] He fails to analyze the long subject entries in his index.[171] He makes serious errors in names, dates, titles, and places of publications and is careless about editions and the continuations of works that spread over several years. In his supplement of 1887, he fails to repair the faults that reviewers had pointed out. More serious than anything in this long list of faults is, in my opinion, his rash attempt to survey all bibliographies anew with little or no regard for his predecessors.

Two things must be said in reduction of this severe judgment on Vallée. He is the first compiler of a bibliography of bibliographies to base his work on the books in a particular library and to indicate, although incompletely and inaccurately, what he has seen there. He has included many references to bibliographical sections in non-bibliographical books. Although these and other references of slight value are numerous, he has accumulated a very large number of bibliographies. Almost everyone will find something useful in Vallée's book. The first volume contains 6894 titles, and the supplement raises the total to 10,246. In a savage criticism[172] Henri Stein declared that perhaps 2500 titles should have been omitted and 3000 should be added. This amounts to saying that Vallée collected about three-quarters of the bibliographies he should have found. I cannot vouch for the correctness of these estimates but they may suggest what the book is worth. It is regrettable that Henri Stein, to whom we now turn, did not give the additional titles as a supplement instead of writing a new bibliography of bibliographies.

In the _Manuel de bibliographie générale_ (1897) Henri Stein (b. 1862), a member of the staff of the Bibliothèque Nationale, offered the world a new bibliography of bibliographies. He calls it nothing less than a summary of all bibliographies published before 1897,[173] but seems at times to be content to supplement Petzholdt's _Bibliotheca bibliographica_. He falls far short of completeness and does not make his intention entirely clear. Although the task that he undertook is beyond any man's strength, his treatment of his colleague Vallée does not awaken sympathy for him.

Stein yields to the same temptation to which his predecessors had succumbed. He includes material of little pertinence to a bibliography of bibliographies. For example, he could have omitted a long list (pp. 555-636) of places where books were printed before 1800 and the names of the printers. This information is very useful to a historian of printing, but has no proper place in Stein's book. His list of indexes to journals is useful but is also not altogether pertinent.[174] His long list of printed catalogues of public libraries, a list which is limited almost exclusively to rather recent publications, is something of a luxury.[175] Neither logic nor custom justifies an objection to the inclusion of bibliographies of individual authors, but Stein could have reduced their number without loss.[176]

Stein based his classification on Petzholdt's book but introduced modifications of his own. As Vilhelm Grundtvig correctly says, the classification is "at times nothing less than amazing, for example, hippology is under 'sciences pédagogiques' [and] dentistry under 'medicine interne.'"[177] Although he provides a table of contents and an alphabetical subject index, he has not made his book easy to use. There is no index of authors' names.

The _Manuel_ does not contain all the available bibliographies or even a satisfactory collection of the best ones. Stein's surveys of universal and national bibliographies are inadequate and so, too, are the sections dealing with philosophy, chemistry, education, sport, and linguistics.[178] He shows very little interest in bibliographies printed before 1800. He does not carry out systematically or successfully an announced intention of expressing critical judgments.[179] Finally, he is inaccurate in details.[180]

This recital seems to leave little to be said in Stein's favor, but no bibliographer who has made a serious effort to write a useful book has ever failed to be helpful. Any list of 5500 bibliographies--the figure is Besterman's--will contain titles and information worth noting and remembering. He calls attention to books that other men have not seen or have neglected to cite. For example, I have not seen "Ahm. Zeki-Bey, _Elmevsonat_ (Boulak, 1904)," which he describes (p. 264) as a bibliography of Arabic encyclopedias, mentioned elsewhere. We owe to him the interesting and important fact that the unpublished manuscript of Mazzuchelli's enormous work, _Gli scrittori d'Italia_, is in the Vatican Library.[181] He adds many titles to those cited by Petzholdt and Vallée. I lay aside the _Manuel_ with the regret that Stein's zeal has given us a less useful book than we might have hoped for. Had he named, as I have suggested, the three thousand bibliographies lacking in Vallée and had he continued the collection from Vallée's supplement of 1887 to his own publication in 1897, he would have given us an invaluable book. What we have is one more demonstration of the unwillingness of bibliographers in his century to join hands with their predecessors and contemporaries.

FOOTNOTES:

[126] For identification and description of these bibliographies see Theodore Besterman, _The Beginnings of Systematic Bibliography_ (2d ed.; [Oxford] and London, [1936]) and Petzholdt.

[127] He probably consulted the many treatises on what was then called _historia litteraria_, but these were historical accounts of the development of the various disciplines rather than bibliographies. Two brief guides to these great specialized bibliographies are well hidden. They are Benjamin Hederich, _Notitia auctorum antiqua & media, oder Leben, Schrifften, Editiones und Censuren der Biblischen und entweder noch gantz oder auch nur in considerablen Fragmentis vorhandenen fürnehmsten Griechischen und Lateinischen Kirchen-Scholastischen- und Profan-Scribenten_ (Wittenberg, 1714), "Einleitung," pp. 2-144 and G. C. Hamberger, _Zuverlässige Nachrichten von den vornehmsten Schriftstellern vom Anfange der Welt bis 1500_ (4 v.; Lemgo, 1756-1764), I, 1-54, "Erste vorläufige Abhandlung. Von der Kentnis der Schriftsteller." These very interesting and instructive compilations are selective guides to the best bibliographies and are intended to aid students. They are limited almost exclusively to bibliographies of classical Greek and Latin literature, church history, and the related disciplines. Since the books in which they appear deal only with authors and subjects belonging to the period before 1500 and the bibliographies are similarly limited in scope, the usefulness of the bibliographies is obviously confined to giving information about the best current reference works in a few fields. No doubt the abundant bibliographical information in such a work as Heinrich Zedler, _Grosses vollständiges Universal Lexikon aller Wissenschaften und Künste_ (68 v.; Halle, 1732-1754) was sufficient for most scholarly needs.

[128] See _Bibliotheca selectissima_ (Amsterdam, 1743), I, 340, No. 2985. There is a copy of this catalogue in the Newberry Library.

[129] For a discussion of these difficulties see H. B. Van Hoesen's review of the _Bibliographic Index_ in the _Library Quarterly_, X (1940), 272-274.

[130] See a review by A. S., _Heidelbergische Jahrbücher der Literatur_, 1812, pp. 644-656. The reviewer points out inaccuracies of various kinds, complains bitterly about the inconveniences of the alphabetical arrangement, and cites many lacking titles.

[131] Pp. 232-236.

[132] Pp. 249-252.

[133] Pp. 275-286.

[134] Pp. 470-472.

[135] Pp. 450-452.

[136] Pp. 263-274.

[137] Pp. 409-419.

[138] P. 427.

[139] He would have removed publishers' catalogues (p. 97 [Estienne] and p. 118 [Plantin]), a weekly catalogue of the booktrade (p. 103), various catalogues of libraries owned by institutions (pp. 101, 105). The last of these should have been put in the list on pp. 40-75.

[140] This section, which does not include biobibliographies, contains 1861 titles. There are 586 biobibliographies in the following, fifth section.

[141] For a description of this book, which was published in only twelve copies, see Petzholdt, p. 113. See an enlargement of a microfilm in the Newberry Library.

[142] See II, 26, No. 483; II, 131, No. 390; II, 121, No. 378.

[143] See II, 119, No. 7, where he cites "Sanderus, A. de scriptoribus Flandriae lib. III. Antv. 1624, in.-4.," but omits _De Brugensibus eruditionis fama claris libri duo_ (Antwerp, 1624) and _De Gandavensibus eruditionis fama claris libri tres_ (Antwerp, 1624).

[144] See II, 14-17, & 4, Nos. 268-312.

[145] See II, 140-167, Nos. 131-720.

[146] See "Bibliographies of Bibliographies," _The Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of America_, III (1911), 50-53.

[147] For brief comment on these bibliographies see below.

[148] In the eighteenth century J. M. Francke, who compiled the great _Catalogus Bibliothecae Bunavianae_ (3 v.; Leipzig, 1750-1756), came, with the Bünau library, to the Dresden library. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century F. A. Ebert completed the _Allgemeines bibliographisches Lexikon_ in the same library.

[149] Pp. 20-65.

[150] Leipzig, 1850; 2d ed., Brussels, 1854. These are many later indexes to biographies. See, as examples, Max Arnim, _Internationale Personalbiographie_, 1850-1935 (Leipzig, 1936) and a second edition (Leipzig, 1944-1952) that has been expanded backwards and forwards to cover the years between 1800 and 1943 and Luigi Ferrari, _Onomasticon. Repertorio biobibliografico degli scrittori italiani dal 1500 al 1850_ (Milan, 1947).

[151] I do not see what principle guides him in the choice of bibliographies published in the editions of an author's works. He does not include, for example, a very curious bibliography in Marcus Meibomius (ed.), Diogenes Laertius, _De vitis, dogmatibus et apophthegmatibus clarorum philosophorum_ (Amsterdam, 1692). It is the first bibliography, as far as I know, to give systematically the locations of the books cited. The first example of a reference to the place where a book may be found is, I believe, in Giovanni Nevizzano (Johannes Nevizzanus), _Quaestiones_ (ed. L. Gómez; Venice, 1525). I quote it from Wilhelm Fuchs, "Die Anfänge juristischer Fachbibliographie," _Archiv für Bibliographie, Buch- und Bibliothekswesen_, II (1929), 49.

[152] See, for example, a list of men named Alard (p. 167).

[153] "Petzholdt redivivus. Zur Theorie und Praxis eines allgemeinen internationalen Bibliographienverzeichnisses," _Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, LXIV (1950), 413-438.

[154] I am of course aware that the _Guide to Reference Books_ originally written by Alice Kroeger has passed through many editions and has had two subsequent editors. Its well-deserved success is no very strong argument for the usefulness of a classified arrangement. The _Guide_ is, it must be recognized, a very special sort of reference work. It has been intended from the beginning to serve reference librarians and has been improved and enlarged for that use. In other words, it has always had very limited and highly trained readers familiar with its special methods. The latest edition is by Constance M. Winchell (7th ed.; Chicago, 1951).

[155] _Prosopographia & heroum atque illustrium virorum totius Germaniae_ (Basel, 1656-1566); _Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch_ (Basel, 1567-1570). The two editions differ somewhat in contents.

[156] Third ed.; Berlin, 1930, pp. 186-200.

[157] Arnold Kuczynski, _Thesaurus libellorum reformationis illustrantium_ (Leipzig, 1870. ICN; MH. Supplement, 1874. MH); Oswald Weigel (comp.), _Bibliothek J. K. F. Knaake. Katalog der Sammlung von Reformationsschriften des Begründers der Weimarer Lutherausgabe_ (6 pts. and list of prices. Leipzig, 1908. DLC [6 pts.]; ICN [complete]; MH [pt. 1]).

[158] These are, respectively: _Bücherschatz der deutschen National-Litteratur des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts_ (Berlin, 1854. CU; MH); _Verzeichniss von Büchern vorzüglich aus der Freih. v. Meuse-bach'schen Bibliothek_ (2 v.; Berlin, 1855, 1856. CU; MH); Karl Faber und Emil Hirsch, _Sammlung Viktor Manheimer. Deutsche Barockliteratur von Opitz bis Brockes_ (Munich, 1927). The Prussian state library bought the Heyse and Meusebach collections.

[159] Examples of catalogues used for such purposes are the _Bibliotheca Heberiana_ (13 pts.; London, 1834-1837. The thirteenth part was published in Brussels. ICN [pts. 1-12]); the Robert Hoe catalogue (5 v.; New York, 1911-1912); and the A. H. Huth catalogue (6 v.; London, 1911-1920).

[160] _Illustrated Catalogue of the Notable Collection of Miss Susan Minns..._ (New York: American Art Association, 1922. ICN; MH). There are several other important catalogues of this sort in the bibliography of the Dance of Death.

[161] _A Bibliography of Emblem Books_, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery, 2=Studies of the Warburg Institute, 3 (London, 1947).

[162] _Historisches Jahrbuch_, XL (1920), 49.

[163] See p. 712. This pamphlet (ICN) is an anonymous catalogue of the library of Tommaso Giuseppe Farsetti. G. A. E. Bogeng calls it a model piece of work; see _Jahrbuch für Bücherkunde und Liebhaberei_, II (1910), 44. In his treatise _Die grossen Bibliophilen. Geschichte der Büchersammler und ihre Sammlungen_ (Leipzig, 1922), III, 30, Bogeng names Giacomo or Jacopo Morelli (1745-1819) as the author. Gustave Brunet, who has seen the _Catalogo_, says: "Ce petit volume de 207 pages offre l'inventaire raisonnée d'une collection fort importante de rarétés dramatiques appartenant au bailli Farsetti. De notes nombreuses et parfois d'une certain étendue lui donnent du prix" (_Dictionnaire de bibliographie catholique_ [Paris, 1860], col. 631). Curiously enough, Frati's account of Italian book-collectors, bibliographers, and librarians does not include Farsetti and makes no mention of this and other catalogues of the Farsetti library in the article on Jacopo Morelli; see _Dizionario biobibliografico dei bibliotecari e bibliofili italiani dal sec. XIV al XIX_ (Florence, 1933), pp. 379-384.

[164] _Bibliography of Bibliographies_ (Chicago, 1901), pp. 25-26.

[165] _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, XX (1903), 406-407.

[166] _Biblioteca bibliografica antica e moderna d'ogni classe e d'ogni natione_ (2 v.; Guastella, 1782-1783: MH). Those who cite this as a bibliography of bibliographies cannot have looked beyond the title page.

[167] He cites this book by the title _Speciminis antiquarum lectionum supplementa decem_, which is the title of the appendix to Labbé's book. See Chapter II, n. 7. Did Vallée actually see the work that he is citing?

[168] See, as examples, a list of characters performed on the stage by Jehn Bannister (No. 31) and a book on how to tell a Caxton (No. 844). Checklists of batrachia (No. 1687 _bis_) and other zoological genera (several entries after No. 1712) are accepted by Besterman, although he does not include these particular works because they are not separately published books.

[169] The description of the _Catalogue de la bibliothèque du roy_ (No. 1336) is incorrect and incomplete, Nos. 2307 and 2398 _bis_ should have been entered under the author's or the compiler's names. Francesco Agostino della Chiesa di Saluzzo (No. 2526) should not be under "F." Growaeus Sudovolgiensis (No. 2875) is William Crowe; see Donald Wing, _A Short-Title Catalogue_, C 7868. A cross-reference to Danz (No. 783) is needed under Walch (No. 6631).

[170] Bibliographies of classical authors found in standard editions might have been omitted; see No. 2652 (Aulus Gellius), Nos. 5897 and 5898 (Seneca). Bibliographies found in biographies (No. 4048) and bibliographies in doctoral dissertations (No. 2923) could be omitted without serious loss.

[171] See "Allemagne" (pp. 600-602), "Amérique" (pp. 603-604), and "Imprimerie" (pp. 685-687).

[172] Cited in the Bibliography below.

[173] "La synthèse de toutes les bibliographies publiées jusqu'à la fin de l'année 1896" (Introduction, p. [i]).

[174] See pp. 637-710. For a bibliography of such indexes see Vilhelm Grundtvig, _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, XX (1903), 428-430, 438-439. See such recent compilations as Norma Olin Ireland, _An Index to Indexes. A subject bibliography of published indexes_. Useful Reference Series, No. 67 (Boston, 1942); D. C. Haskell, _Checklist of Cumulative Indexes to Individual Periodicals in the New York Public Library_. (New York, 1942).

[175] See pp. 711-768. See a list of similar bibliographies in Grundtvig, pp. 439-440.

[176] See pp. 497-554. Compare my criticism of Petzholdt's list of bibliographies of individual authors, pp. 79-81, above.

[177] See Vilhelm Grundtvig, _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, XX (1903), 409, n. 2.

[178] Grundtvig, pp. 409-411.

[179] For example, he calls Bigmore and Wyman, _A Bibliography of Printing_, a rather poor piece of work (p. 438), but it has not yet been replaced and was recently found worthy of reprinting.

[180] He commends Johann Albert Fabricius, but fails to note that the last three volumes of the _Bibliotheca graeca_ were not included in Harles's edition and that the first edition of the _Bibliotheca latina_ was published in 1697 and not in 1728. See Stein, pp. 244-245. Petzholdt gives full and accurate information about these books.

[181] See p. 302. He might have added a reference to Enrico Narducci, "Intorno alia vita del conte Giammaria Mazzuchelli ed alla collezione de' suoi manoscritti ora posseduta della biblioteca vaticana," _Giornale Arcadico_, N.S. LII (1867). I have not seen this article, which is said to extend to sixty-four pages.