Principles of Bibliographical Description

Bowers, Fredson

ISBN 10: 1884718000 / ISBN 13: 9781884718007

Published by New Castle, DE : Oak Knoll Press, 2012

About this Item

Paperback, 8vo.; Spine discoloured.

Seller Inventory # 403217-UG15

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Principles of Bibliographical Description
• Publisher: New Castle, DE : Oak Knoll Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1884718000
• ISBN 13: 9781884718007
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 2nd Edition
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

Reprint of the first edition. With an Introduction by G. Thomas Tanselle. One of the indisputable classics of 20th-century scholarship, Bowers's work is one of the standard guides on the subject, providing a comprehensive manual for the description of printed books as physical objects. Although there has been much activity in descriptive bibliography since then, Principles still holds its place as the central book to which those engaged in bibliographical work continually return.

Review

Fredson Bowers's Principles of Bibliographical Description is one of the indisputable classics of twentieth-century scholarship. When it was first published in December 1949, it immediately became the standard guide to its subject, providing for the first time a comprehensive manual for the description of printed books as physical objects. In it, Bowers consolidated and expanded upon the achievements of an English tradition that was nearly a century old. His book was an act of creative synthesis, which established a new point of departure. Although there has been much activity in descriptive bibliography since then, the Principles still holds its place as the central book to which those engaged in bibliographical work must continually return. Bowers ended a 1948 article by referring to the satisfaction of producing a descriptive bibliography that "will stand up under the test of time and will never need to be done again"; it begins to appear that in his book about descriptive bibliography he may have achieved such a work. It is a landmark in the history of scholarship, to be sure, but it is also a work of vital contemporary relevance. --from the introduction by G. Thomas Tanselle