The American Catalogue has now become a quinquennial issue, gathering the publications of five years into one alphabet; and it is supplemented at the end of every year by the "Annual American Catalogue," started in 1886, which gives, in about 400 pages, in its first alphabet, collations of the books of the year (a most important feature, unfortunately absent from the quinquennial American Catalogue.) Its second alphabet gives authors, titles, and sometimes subject-matters, but without the distribution into subject-divisions found in the quinquennial catalogue; and the titles are greatly abridged from the full record of its first alphabet. Its price is $3.50 each year.
And this annual, in turn, is made up from the catalogues of titles of all publications, which appear in the Publishers' Weekly, the carefully edited organ of the book publishing interests in the United States. This periodical, which will be found a prime necessity in every library, originated in New York, in 1855, as the "American Publishers' Circular," and has developed into the recognized authority in American publications, under the able management of R. R. Bowker and A. Growoll. For three dollars a year, it supplies weekly and monthly alphabetical lists of whatever comes from the press, in book form, as completely as the titles can be gathered from every source. It gives valuable notes after most titles, defining the scope and idea of the work, with collations, features which are copied into the Annual American Catalogue.
I must not omit to mention among American bibliographies, although published in London, and edited by a foreigner, Mr. N. Trübner's "Bibliographical Guide to American literature: a classed list of books published in the United States during the last forty years." This book appeared in 1859, and is a carefully edited bibliography, arranged systematically in thirty-two divisions of subjects, filling 714 pages octavo. It gives under each topic, an alphabet of authors, followed by titles of the works, given with approximate fullness, followed by place and year of publication, but without publishers' names. The number of pages is also given where ascertained, and the price of the work quoted in sterling English money. This work, by a competent German-English book-publisher of London, is preceded by a brief history of American literature, and closes with a full index of authors whose works are catalogued in it.
We come now to by far the most comprehensive and ambitious attempt to cover not only the wide field of American publications, but the still more extensive field of books relating to America, which has ever yet been made. I refer to the "Bibliotheca Americana; a dictionary of books relating to America," by Joseph Sabin, begun more than thirty years ago, in 1868, and still unfinished, its indefatigable compiler having died in 1881, at the age of sixty. This vast bibliographical undertaking was originated by a variously-gifted and most energetic man, not a scholar, but a bookseller and auctioneer, born in England. Mr. Sabin is said to have compiled more catalogues of private libraries that have been brought to the auctioneer's hammer, than any man who ever lived in America. He bought and sold, during nearly twenty years, old and rare books, in a shop in Nassau street, New York, which was the resort of book collectors and bibliophiles without number. He made a specialty of Americana, and of early printed books in English literature, crossing the Atlantic twenty-five times to gather fresh stores with which to feed his hungry American customers. During all these years, he worked steadily at his magnum opus, the bibliography of America, carrying with him in his many journeys and voyages, in cars or on ocean steamships, copy and proofs of some part of the work. There have been completed about ninety parts, or eighteen thick volumes of nearly 600 pages each; and since his death the catalogue has been brought down to the letter S, mainly by Mr. Wilberforce Eames, librarian of the Lenox Library, New York. Though its ultimate completion must be regarded as uncertain, the great value to all librarians, and students of American bibliography or history, of the work so far as issued, can hardly be over-estimated. Mr. Sabin had the benefit in revising the proofs of most of the work, of the critical knowledge and large experience of Mr. Charles A. Cutter, the librarian of the Boston Athenaeum Library, whose catalogue of the books in that institution, in five goodly volumes, is a monument of bibliographical learning and industry. Sabin's Dictionary is well printed, in large, clear type, the titles being frequently annotated, and prices at auction sales of the rarer and earlier books noted. Every known edition of each work is given, and the initials of public libraries in the United States, to the number of thirteen, in which the more important works are found, are appended. In not a few cases, where no copy was known to the compiler in a public collection, but was found in a private library, the initials of its owner were given instead.
This extensive bibliography was published solely by subscription, only 635 copies being printed at $2.50 a part, so that its cost to those subscribing was about $225 unbound, up to the time of its suspension. The first part appeared January 1, 1867, although Vol. I. bears date New York, 1868. It records most important titles in full, with (usually) marks denoting omissions where such are made. In the case of many rare books relating to America (and especially those published prior to the 18th century) the collations are printed so as to show what each line of the original title embraces, i. e. with vertical marks or dashes between the matter of the respective lines. This careful description is invaluable to the bibliographical student, frequently enabling him to identify editions, or to solve doubts as to the genuineness of a book-title in hand. The collation by number of pages is given in all cases where the book has been seen, or reported fully to the editor. The order of description as to each title is as follows: (1) Place of publication (2) publisher (3) year (4) collation and size of book. Notes in a smaller type frequently convey information of other editions, of prices in various sales, of minor works by the same writer, etc.
The fullness which has been aimed at in Sabin's American bibliography is seen in the great number of sermons and other specimens of pamphlet literature which it chronicles. It gives also the titles of most early American magazines, reviews, and other periodicals, except newspapers, which are generally omitted, as are maps also. As an example of the often minute cataloguing of the work, I may mention that no less than eight pages are occupied with a list of the various publications and editions of books by Dr. Jedediah Morse, an author of whom few of the present generation of Americans have ever heard. He was the earliest American geographer who published any comprehensive books upon the subject, and his numerous Gazetteers and Geographies, published from 1784 to 1826, were constantly reprinted, until supplanted by more full, if not more accurate works.
Upon the whole, Sabin's great work, although so far from being finished, is invaluable as containing immeasurably more and fuller titles than any other American bibliography. It is also the only extensive work on the subject which covers all periods, although the books of the last thirty years must chiefly be excepted as not represented. As a work of reference, while its cost and scarcity may prevent the smaller public libraries from possessing it, it is always accessible in the libraries of the larger cities, where it is among the foremost works to be consulted in any research involving American publications, or books of any period or country relating to America, or its numerous sub-divisions.
I may now mention, much more cursorily, some other bibliographies pertaining to our country. The late Henry Stevens, who died in 1886, compiled a "Catalogue of the American Books in the Library of the British Museum." This was printed by the Museum authorities in 1856, and fills 754 octavo pages. Its editor was a highly accomplished bibliographer and book-merchant, born in Vermont, but during the last forty years of his life resided in London, where he devoted himself to his profession with great learning and assiduity. He published many catalogues of various stocks of books collected by him, under such titles as "Bibliotheca historica," "Bibliotheca Americana," etc., in which the books were carefully described, often with notes illustrating their history or their value. He became an authority upon rare books and early editions, and made a valuable catalogue of the Bibles in the Caxton exhibition at London, in 1877, with bibliographical commentary. He was for years chief purveyor of the British Museum Library for its American book purchases, and aided the late James Lenox in building up that rich collection of Americana and editions of the Scriptures which is now a part of the New York Public Library. His catalogue of the American books in the British Museum, though now over forty years old, and supplanted by the full alphabetical catalogue of that entire library since published, is a valuable contribution to American bibliography.
Mr. Stevens was one of the most acute and learned bibliographers I have known. He was a man of marked individuality and independent views; with a spice of eccentricity and humor, which crept into all his catalogues, and made his notes highly entertaining reading. Besides his services to the British Museum Library, in building up its noble collection of Americana, and in whose rooms he labored for many years, with the aid of Panizzi and his successors, whom he aided in return, Stevens collected multitudes of the books which now form the choice treasures of the Lenox library, the Carter Brown library, at Providence, the Library of Congress, and many more American collections. To go with him through any lot of Americana, in one of his enterprising visits to New York, where he sometimes came to market his overflowing stores picked up in London and on the continent, was a rare treat. Every book, almost, brought out some verbal criticism, anecdote or reminiscence of his book-hunting experiences, which began in America, and extended all over Europe.
He was not only an indefatigable collector, but a most industrious and accurate bibliographer, doing more work in that field, probably, than any other American. He wrote a singularly careful, though rapid hand, as plain and condensed as print, and in days before modern devices for manifolding writing were known, he copied out his invoices in duplicate or triplicate in his own hand, with titles in full, and frequent descriptive notes attached. His many catalogues are notable for the varied learning embodied. He was a most intelligent and vigilant book collector for more than forty years, his early labors embracing towns in New York and New England, as purveyor for material for Peter Force, of Washington, whose American Archives were then in course of preparation. Among the library collectors who absorbed large portions of his gathered treasures, were James Lenox, Jared Sparks, George Livermore, John Carter Brown, Henry C. Murphy, George Brinley, the American Geographical Society, and many historical societies. He was an authority on all the early voyages, and wrote much upon them. No one knew more about early Bibles than Henry Stevens.
