Book Description

The sixtieth volume of Studies in Bibliography continues its tradition of presenting a wide range of articles by international scholars on bibliography, textual criticism, and other aspects of the study of books. The volume opens with an article by magisterial bibliographer G. Thomas Tanselle that offers on his work on bibliographical description over forty years. Other articles range in topic from manuscripts of the medieval poet Malory and of a seventeenth-century nautical dictionary to the modernist architectural journal L'Architecture Vivante. In a tour de force of bibliographical analysis, one piece examines a play whose idiosyncratic printing stumped the eminent bibliographer W. W. Greg, while two others explore aspects of library history. One piece offers new insight into the personal collection of James Joyce, and the other identifies a sixteenth-century edition of Copernicus from the original library of the University of Virginia. The volume concludes with a supplement recording activities of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia since its fiftieth anniversary in 1997. The articles and their authors include: "Notes on Recent Work in Descriptive Bibliography," G. Thomas Tanselle; "Errors in the Malory Archetype: The Case of Vinaver's Wight and Balan's Curious Remark," Ralph Norris; "James Shirley's Triumph of Peace: Analyzing Greg's Nightmare," Stephen Tabor; "The Manuscripts of Sir Henry Mainwaring's Sea-Man's Dictionary," Amy Bowles; "The Jeffersonian Provenance of the University of Virginia Copy of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus: Addendum to Gingerich," Samuel V. Lemley; "Joyce's Ulysses Library," Tristan Power; "L'Architecture Vivante and Its Extraits," Daniel Lawler; "Supplement to The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia: The First Fifty Years," Elizabeth K. Lynch and Anne G. Ribble.