Note 26 — MATTERS TO BE ATTENDED TO IN CATALOGUING.

The most disorderly book I know in this respect is:—A universal alphabet grammar and language, … by George Edmonds, … [1856] quarto:—The following is the collation. Its length would generally preclude its being given in a bibliotheca. First we have the preface vii pages, then a table of contents vii pages; the introduction 34 pages, a half-title unpaged, then 152 pages, then another half-title unpaged, then pp. 44 and iii., then corrigenda pp. ix., then a half-title and “the Dictionary,” forming a third of the book entirely unpaged, then the addenda paged separately pp. 3. Sometimes the figures of paging are at the side, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the top and sometimes at the bottom! Timperley in his “Printer’s Manual” (1838) p. 18, says, “Running titles may be set to an index, but folios are seldom put unless with a view to recommend the book for its extraordinary number of pages; for as an index does not refer to its own matter by figures, they are needless in this case.” When the trouble that a variety of pagings gives the bibliographer, is considered, it is to be hoped that the simplicity I recommend will be adopted as much as possible.