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In arranging a number of rules, it is difficult to please every reader. I have frequently been unable to satisfy myself; and therefore, cannot expect that the arrangement which I have at last adopted will give universal satisfaction.—W. Lennie, The principles of English grammar … 34th ed., Edinb., 1854, p. 4.

Cataloguers may comment upon, but should never alter what it has been deemed right to state on the title page of a book by those who have framed it.—Art of making catalogues, &c. [by A. Crestadoro], 1856, p. 14.

In cataloguing or describing a book six points at least should be kept in view as necessary to its identification.^[19]

(1.) Title.

(2.) Name of author, and sometimes description.

(3.) Place of publication.

(4.) Publisher’s name, and sometimes address.

(5.) The date of publication.

(6.) The size.

If full titles (that is, an exact transcript of the title from beginning to the end), are given, it will only be necessary for the cataloguer to supply in its proper, or most suitable place, such of the above information as is not on the title-page.

If abbreviations be adopted several considerations arise.

(1.) As to so much of the title as occurs before the author’s name we have already said that the first few words should be copied word for word, and afterwards every omission should be denoted by dots.

(2.) The name of the author should not be abbreviated, if it renders it difficult to distinguish between two with the same initials. If the author’s qualifications are omitted or abbreviated, dots … of omission should be inserted. A description after a name is often very important and useful in determining the degree of credit to be attached to the work, but they are frequently so numerous that they are too long for most catalogues.

Works in more than one volume generally have the number on the title, as “In three volumes, vol 1.” Take no notice of “Vol I.,” but invariably state the number of volumes in the order in which it occurs on the title-page. The number of volumes, however, is not always stated; in some works each volume simply has “Vol I,” or “Vol II,” on the title, when this is so, the number of volumes should be stated after the date thus: “1873, in three volumes, octavo.” The reader would then know whether the number of volumes was stated on the title or not.

There will be cases where this rule will not sufficiently indicate the fact, as for instance, when the first does not, but the second does, state the number of volumes. A note will meet this case, if necessary.

It may appear to some that so trifling a matter is unworthy of note, but with this the cataloguer has nothing to do. His business is to note facts however trivial, whether anybody should ever require them is not in his province.

(3.) Place of publication. Several places of publication are frequently given in the imprint of a book, when this is the case, the first place should, at all events, be given, and if the book is not printed as well as published there, the place where it is printed should be stated.

(4.) The Publisher’s name we seldom find in any list of books. I never recollect to have seen it in any catalogue of a library, and in very few bibliographical works. And yet it is often of great importance. In cataloguing works without the author’s name it should seldom if ever be omitted, however much the title is abbreviated. The publisher’s address may often be added with advantage, especially in cases where he is little known. For many firms who have been issuing works from the same house for a century or even longer, it seems superfluous.^[20]

Both name and address of publishers may be abbreviated without marks of omission, a rule having been made to that effect, so that the reader may be apprised of the fact. Some small elementary works have as many as ten or fifteen places and double that number of publishers in the imprint, these of course would not be given in full unless with some special object.

The publisher’s name when well known is also important as frequently giving a character, or guarantee, if not of the literary worth of a book, at all events of its sincerity.

If the publisher is also the author, but does not signify that fact, the book must be considered anonymous. The publisher’s name (that is the author’s) must be repeated, as would be the case if written by another person.

Privately printed^[21] works are frequently issued without the name of a publisher or bookseller, though less frequently without that of a printer, which if not on the title should be supplied in parenthesis or in a note.

(5.) The date of publication, if not on the title, will like the author’s name, be frequently found in some other part of the book. It should then be supplied after the last word on the title in parenthesis. If not in the book, it should be put between brackets [   ], and if uncertain with a note of interrogation.

Stereotyped books are generally without dates of publication for certain commercial reasons. Only superficial readers are duped by the artifice, for the first object of the literary student would be to determine approximately the date of issue. When the preface is not dated it is no doubt as often through thoughtlessness as intention.

In quoting a work that has passed through numerous editions, it is often useful to give the date of the first.

There is a practice amongst publishers of post dating books issued towards the end of a year.^[22] This practice will account for the dates of books in some bibliothecas, biographies and catalogues, sometimes being a year earlier than the date on the book. The title having been copied from an advertisement or a review of the work apparently before publication. When known to the cataloguer the actual year of issue should be supplied in brackets immediately after the date of the title.

(6.) With the different descriptions of sizes of books Professor De Morgan was so exasperated that after giving descriptions of how the sheets of a book are folded he says, “The words folio, quarto, octavo, duodecimo, decimo-octavo, refer (in his book) entirely to size, as completely as in a modern sale catalogue, the maker of which never looks at the inside of a book to tell its form. All the very modern distinctions of imperial, royal, crown, atlas, demy, &c., &c., &c., I have relinquished to paper-makers and publishers, who alone are able to understand them.”^[23]

All the words in use to describe sizes are useless. They convey no definite idea to the reader, for the simple reason that nothing definite as to size is meant. The only definite meaning is that the paper is folded into certain divisions, and not that the paper or print is of a particular size. A quarto is often the size of an octavo, and an octavo the size of a quarto, duodecimo, or anything else. Nevertheless though not certain, the terms do in most cases, enable us to guess at the probable or approximate size. The only way to be certain of the size is to state it in inches.^[24] Probably few literary men would put up with the trouble of measuring.

Compilers of Catalogues of modern books may content themselves in most cases with the terms at present in use.^[25]

Novels are generally described in the advertisements as “post octavo,” which is not octavo at all, but duodecimo. The mis-description is of little importance, for everybody knows about the size of the modern three volume novel, a little larger now than at the beginning of the century.

It is annoying that so small a matter as the size of a book should occupy so much space. It has always been a subject of difficulty. A bookseller as such, in his sale catalogues, will describe a book as 12mo, but when he compiles a bibliographical list he will describe it correctly as octavo, though the actual size is what is looked upon as duodecimo.

These points are strictly necessary for ordinary catalogues, but they will not satisfy all enquiries, for we cannot tell from them whether it is a book or a pamphlet that is described. It is therefore desirable to add the number of pages. In the paging we have as much variety as in the sizes, authors, publishers, and printers, not having the slightest thought for bibliographers, and the infinite trouble of collation.

A book should be paged in as simple a manner as possible. This is a rule that has never been attended to, and so long as authors do not know their own minds never can be. If the printer begins the paging regularly, and the author thinks irregularly, and recollects something that has been left out, irregular paging will be the result.^[26]

Always count from the very first printed page belonging to the book, excluding advertisements. Give the paging as printed, that is, in the same characters. If leaves occur unpaged, either before those paged or after, use arabian numerals to denote those unpaged.

Sometimes an octavo book begins with, say xii. numbered pages and then occur four unnumbered, and then we have page 1 on signature B, numbered consecutively to page 253, and three pages of appendix and errata beyond. Describe it thus: octavo pp. xii., and 4, and 253, and 3. But if 4 and 3 are numbered with roman numerals, it should be thus:—octavo, pp. xii., and iv., 253, iii., because this is more accurate. We use the same kind of numerals used in the book. It is, however, not a matter of much moment, provided the correct number of pages is given in the collation.

I do not use the sign plus (xii.+iv.+iii.) because it makes the figures look more uninteresting, and signs enough occur in the titles themselves.

The price at which a book is published is often unascertainable, and it is useful to insert it, though it has nothing to do with its literary or scientific value. But in this as in every other particular it is impossible to say what the student may require, and its omission might make a man of genius waste precious hours which it is the special object of the true bibliographer to save.

If the price is mentioned on the title page, accuracy requires that it be given in its regular order, whether at the beginning or end of the title. Instances will be found in the list of works by a lady at the end.

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