Music and the Book Trade from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century. Ed. by Robin Myers, Michael Harris, and Giles Mandelbrote.

Abstract

The title of this volume is that of the 29th annual conference on Book Trade History, held at the Foundling Museum in 2007 under the auspices of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association. In addition to revised versions of the seven papers read on the occasion, it includes as an appendix a talk given by Katharine Hogg on the history of the Foundling Hospital and its Handel connection, including the Gerald Coke Handel Collection now housed there. The title perhaps suggests rather more comprehensive coverage of the subject than is contained within these 200 pages. Of the eight contributions, five are on British themes, two focus on Vienna, and one on Spain and Portugal. As far as the time span is concerned, the twentieth century only just creeps in thanks to the Mahler essay, which extends to a 1903 publication. From the point of view of a coherent publication, it would perhaps have been better if the subject had been restricted to the British music book trade and included contributions on Victorian and twentieth-century developments (of which many a story remains to be told). But symposiums are naturally bounded by who is available to prepare and deliver papers at a particular moment, and in such a specialist field it is unrealistic to expect an abundance of choice. As it is, all the papers presented here bestow much enlightenment on their respective topics.