Bibliographical Society (London)

(29 cm), vii, 214 pp., frontispiece. Publisher’s linen-backed boards. - Issued in 1945 and reprinted in 1949. “This excellent collection of ten essays (edited by F.C. Francis) is a particularly fitting product of the Society’s jubilee, for the Society was at the heart of the new developments in bibliography in England during the first half of the twentieth century, and the volume provides the best account yet written of the bibliographical history of that period… The authors were prominent among those who had made the field what it was, and for this reason the volume is a primary document of importance to future historians; they were also scholars, and their essays display a mastery of the areas covered and scrupulousness in forming generalizations. The work is not principally one of reminiscence but is an attempt to achieve a balanced view of the recent past, a perspective on activities in which the authors had been involved … The Studies in Retrospect volume is therefore unusual in being both primary documentation and scholarly history. As the former - and it is in fact a key document - it will obviously be of permanent use, regardless of how many other historical accounts are written. As the latter, it is worth citing here not because there is so little else to point to but because some of its essays are outstanding contributions to the history of scholarship and will remain so, no matter how excellent future treatments may prove to be” (G. Thomas Tanselle, “Bibliographical history as a field of study” in Studies in Bibliography, volume 41, 1988, pp.39-40). ¶ As new.