Ex. Carleton, Will; McLean, Sally; Reuter, Fritz.
140. Mark in some way those forenames which are usually omitted by the author, and neglect them in the arrangement.
Ex. Collins, (Wm.) Wilkie; Gérard, (Cécile) Jules (Basile). This is of practical use. The consulter running over the Collinses is puzzled by the unusual name unless some generally accepted sign shows him that it is unusual. He does not quickly recognize Charles Dickens in Dickens, Charles John Huffam; or Leigh Hunt in Hunt, James Henry Leigh; or Max Müller in Müller, Friedrich Max. Besides, the eye finds the well-known name more quickly if the others are, as it were, pushed aside. The most common methods of distinction are inclosure in parentheses and spacing: Guizot, (François Pierre) Guillaume, or Guizot, F r a n ç o i s P i e r r e Guillaume. The latter is objectionable as unusual, as taking too much room, and as making emphatic the very part of the name which one wants to hide. I prefer the style, Dickens, Charles (in full C: J: Huffam). See § [221]. But in those catalogues in which all Christian names are inclosed in parentheses, some other sign must of course be used to mark the less usual names.
141. Distinguish authors whose family and forenames are the same by the dates of their birth and death, or, if these are not known, by some other label.
Ex. Bp., C. E., Capt., Col., D.D., F.R.S., etc., always to be printed in italics.
In a manuscript catalogue, in preparing which of course one never knows how many new names may be added, such titles should be given to every name. In {65} printing, if room is an object, they may be omitted except when needed for the distinction of synonymous authors. Note, however, that many persons are commonly known and spoken of by a title rather than by their first name, and it is a convenience for the man who is looking, for instance, for the life of Gen. Greene, whose Christian name he does not know, to see at once, as he runs his eye over the list of Greenes, which are generals, without having to read all the titles of books written by or about the Greenes in order to identify him. For the same reason Mrs. should always be given with the name of a married woman, whether the forename which follows is her own or her husband’s; even when the following form is adopted, “Hall, Mrs. Anna Maria (Fielding), wife of S. C.,” which is always to be done when in her titles she uses her husband’s initials. In this case a reference should be made from Hall, Mrs. S. C., to Hall, Mrs. A. M., and so in similar cases. If forenames are represented under subjects by their initials, it is well to give Miss or Mrs. with the names of female authors. The reader who would like to read a book by Miss Cobbe on a certain subject may not feel sure that Cobbe, F. P., is Miss Cobbe.
As late as 1760 unmarried women were usually styled Mrs.; as, Mrs. Lepel, Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Blount, and among writers Mrs. Hannah More. There is no objection to following this practice in cataloguing, as the object of the cataloguer is not to furnish biographical information but to identify the people catalogued.
142. Titles of Englishwomen are to be treated by the following rules: [47]
In the matter of titles an Englishwoman in marrying has everything to gain and nothing to lose. If she marries above her own rank she takes her husband’s title in exchange for her own, if below her own rank she keeps her own title.
Titles of married women.