Editing and Printing the Book List

The manuscript list consists of 659 entries arranged in rough alphabetical order on forty-four pages in a sort of journal approximately seven by eleven inches in size. The normal entry gives the name of the author (for perhaps three-fourths of the entries), the short title, the format, the place and date of publication, and sometimes the publisher. And finally, after most of the items appears the “Theca” or shelf number—one of 33 shelves on which Congreve arranged his books at his lodgings in Surrey Street, London.

The list is set down in three distinct hands. That no one of these is Congreve’s need not surprise us since Congreve had very defective eyesight during the last half of his life. An adequate income from government posts enabled him at this period to employ a secretary, perhaps the “young Amanuensis” that he speaks of in writing to Pope about 1726. That was the year, it seems, when the bulk of the list—587 of the 659 items—was made out. The year is indicated by the fact that this hand enters titles of books published through 1725 but none later. After each alphabetical group a space is left as if for additions, and into these spaces a distinctive second hand has made thirty-one entries, including some as late as 1727 but none later. Then follow forty-one entries by a third hand, including four for 1727 and fourteen for 1728 but none later. Entries by the third hand are probably for books added to the library during Congreve’s final illness. It is interesting to note that none of the entries in this last hand are followed by a “Theca” or shelf location, an omission indicating that by the time these titles were entered, the library had been moved from the original quarters in Surrey Street. Perhaps the young Duchess, owner of the books after Congreve’s death, had already moved them to her house in St. James’s—and possibly the hand is that of her secretary.

A small cross is marked before most of the 659 items—before all but fifty-eight (or thirty-seven, when allowance is made for duplicates). Perhaps these crosses were used in connection with an inventory taken in 1729 when the books were inherited by the young Duchess of Marlborough, or in 1740 when the books were incorporated by marriage settlement into the Leeds library. The thirty-seven items then missing (as indicated by the lack of a cross in Congreve’s list) were Numbers 27, 29, 54, 97, 109, 110, 127, 136, 169, 196, 217, 227, 246, 249, 275, 307, 350, 373, 393, 417, 432, 438, 439, 492, 494, 517, 520, 529, 530, 531, 532, 590, 591, 598, 605, 653, and 658. The two books that had been lent to “Ld. Hervy” (see Congreve’s Number 81) and to the Duchess of Marlborough (see Number 372) were in place at the time of the inventory, and each was duly acknowledged by a cross. An additional larger cross surrounded by four dots appears before eleven items (Numbers 36, 65, 120, 232, 256, 283, 298, 303, 462, 484, and 516) to indicate books sent—so the librarian says in a marginal note—to the Duchess of Leeds. These larger crosses could not have been made, of course, before 1740.

Congreve’s book list is here edited and printed for the first time. After the 659 numbers, which are supplied by the editor to facilitate cross references and indexing, the 659 items of the list are printed with spelling, capitalization, and punctuation as in the manuscript. Occasional raised letters, such as the “r” in “Mr.” and the “e” in “ye,” are brought down into the line. The great variety of dots and dashes used to indicate shortened titles are consistently eliminated. Underscored words are printed in italics. The line breaks in the manuscript are indicated by shilling marks (/). In the manuscript many of the “Theca” numbers have been written over older numbers (indicating, no doubt, a shifting of the books to different shelves). Most of the older numbers are illegible, and only the newer, more legible numbers are printed. The occasional use of brackets in the manuscript (as in Numbers 120, 121, 157, 166, 167, and 238) makes impractical the editorial expansion in brackets of such abbreviations as “p” in No. 9 (for “par”) and in No. 180 (for “per”). The thirty-one entries by the second hand and the forty-one by the third hand (Numbers 34, 35, 36, 70, etc.) are designated by the first line of the annotation.

In the paragraph following each item from the manuscript list, the editor attempts to give the author’s name (with dates of his birth and death), to fill out the short title somewhat when it seems interesting or helpful in identification, and to show the place of publication, the name of the publisher, the year of publication, and the format. The letters “V” (for “U”) and “I” (for “J”) are usually given the English equivalents. Otherwise the short title follows the spelling and punctuation of the title page of the copy examined (usually a copy in one of the key libraries), with capitalization for only the first word of the title and for proper names.

The line immediately below this paragraph is reserved for the number, if any, in the Short-Title Catalogue (abbreviated “STC” for the period ending 1640 and “Wing” for the later period) and specialized bibliographies; and for a short list of libraries in which a copy of the exact edition may be consulted. Then follows, for some items, a second paragraph of pertinent editorial comment.

All the items in Congreve’s list have been identified, at least tentatively. There is most uncertainty, perhaps, about Numbers 114, 368, 375, and 412. Besides these, twenty others, though well enough known in some edition, have not been found in any library in the identical edition of Congreve’s list: Numbers 9, 30, 113, 129, 130, 197, 210, 217, 240, 271, 277, 296, 323, 345, 366, 376, 435, 569, 578, and 637. Furthermore, Numbers 160, 185, 211, 379, 394, 567, and 647 present difficulties perhaps due to errors on the part of the person making the manuscript entry.

It will be noticed that forty or more of the items have not been found in the format given by the manuscript list. This discrepancy may be explained, at least in part, by the tendency of the makers of the list to judge the format merely by size. For example, a large duodecimo (Number 528) is called an octavo, while many small octavos (Numbers 159, 346, 378, 516, etc.) are called duodecimos. The discrepancies involve chiefly the smaller volumes. Not a single folio volume is involved.

The finding lists of libraries (where copies of the exact editions in Congreve’s list may be consulted) have been arranged geographically, including usually one European library and several American libraries located from New England to the Pacific Coast. The ideal has been to find a copy in each of seven key libraries: the British Museum (Europe), Harvard (New England), The New York Public Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Library of Congress (Middle Atlantic), the Newberry Library (Middle West), and the Huntington Library (West). The editor has checked Congreve’s list with the catalogues of the seven key libraries, except for The New York Public Library and the Newberry Library, where the checking was done by members of the respective library staffs.

Occasionally an ideal distribution in the seven libraries is found, as for Numbers 10, 23, 42, 44, 88, 90, 99, and 100. Whenever an edition is not available in the key library, an effort has been made to find it in another library of the region. For books not at the British Museum, references are made to the Bodleian, the Bibliothèque Nationale, or other European libraries. Books not at Harvard are most frequently found at Yale or the Boston Public Library. Those not at the Huntington Library are frequently at the nearby William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

Of the American libraries in the finding lists, exclusive of the key libraries, the editor has examined practically all editions cited at the Boston Public Library, the Yale Library, and the Clark Library. Other American libraries are, for the most part, cited on the authority of the Union Catalog of the Library of Congress. Of the European libraries, exclusive of the British Museum, the editor has examined practically all editions cited at libraries in Paris, Brussels, The Hague, Leiden, Amsterdam, Florence, Rome, Oxford, and Cambridge, and at the various legal and medical libraries in London. Other English libraries are cited on the authority of the National Central Library, London.

In Congreve’s list about sixty-two of the 659 entries are cross references or else duplicate entries. On the other hand, some entries account for more than a single title. Numbers 405–408, for example, include a total of twenty-six titles. There are approximately 620 separate titles in the list. Of these 620, about 481 (78 per cent) may be found in the British Museum, 338 (55 per cent) in the Harvard Library, 192 (31 per cent) in the Library of Congress, 188 (30 per cent) in The New York Public Library, 186 (30 per cent) in the Huntington Library, 184 (30 per cent) in the Newberry Library, and 148 (24 per cent) in the Folger Shakespeare Library. At the Bodleian may be consulted about thirty-four titles not in the British Museum; and at the Bibliothèque Nationale, about thirty-seven titles in neither the British Museum nor the Bodleian. At Yale there are about sixty-eight titles not at Harvard; and at the Clark Library, about forty-seven titles not at the Huntington.