PUNCTUATION.
The punctuation should also be carefully considered. Everything in bibliography is at present very much over punctuated, half, if not two thirds, might be dispensed with to the lessening of the expense, and the great advantage in the appearance.
Imagine you are copying a sentence instead of a title page, and punctuate and put capitals accordingly. If writing that a work was by an author, nobody would write By, neither need it have a capital for a copy of a title.
Mr. Henry Stevens has advocated and adopted this method in his later catalogues and notably in the:—“Bibliotheca geographica and historica or a catalogue of a nine days sale of rare & valuable … books … et cetera … with an essay upon the Stevens system of photobibliography by Henry Stevens GMB [i.e. gatherer of musty books] … [with a photograph of] Ptolemy’s World by Mercator 1578 Part I. to be dispersed by auction by Messrs Puttick and Simpson … London Henry Stevens at the Nuggetory 4 Trafalgar square July 25 1872.”
The title, which I have abbreviated nearly one third, has upwards of two hundred words in it without a single mark of punctuation, except after “Part I.” where it seems to have got in by accident. Throughout his titles, he uses stops very sparingly. Any word which is complete requires no stop. Thus: “vols” requires no stop after it, because it is a finished abbreviation, but vol. does[28].
28. Mr. Stevens’ work contains an essay on catalogues, teeming with useful suggestions, as indeed might be expected from one who has had such long and varied experience.