Goff (Frederick R.), 1916-1982

(28.5 cm), lxiii (3), 798 pp. Publisher’s cloth binding. - Brief entries for nearly 13,000 editions. A reprint of Goff’s personal copy of the Third Census (New York: The Bibliographical Society of America, 1964), in which he had recorded copies seen in the auction sale rooms and book trade (with their prices). “The best and handiest single work of reference for everyone concerned with 15th-century printing, from novices, scholars in other fields, or smaller booksellers, to the great dealers, the great collectors, or incunabulists in great libraries. Here, in one volume and one moment, we find standard forms for authors’ and printers’ names, correct titles and contents of books, reliable assignments of press and date, notices of other descriptions, and references to articles and monographs” (from a review by George D. Painter of the Third Census, in The Book Collector, Autumn 1965, pp.373-377). Frederick R. Goff, “The Preparation of the ‘Third Census of Incunabula in American Libraries’” in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, volume 64 (1970), pp.275-281. ¶ Light shelf wear; otherwise a very good, unmarked copy.