The English Short-Title Catalogue: Past, Present, Future ed. by Henry L. Snyder and Michael S. Smith

Abstract

108 misachievous reference to ‘‘the Egyptian Hieroglyphic for the reverend Tristram Shandy ’s Tertragrammaton, the four favourite ****’’ should not be used by Mr. Paulson to distract readers from Uncle Toby’s explanation for Mrs. Shandy’s midwife preferences. ‘‘Hogarth’s Line of Beauty (his tetragrammaton) and its female equivalent...ofVenus’’ notwithstanding, it is possible she simply does not want a man near her ****.’’ Mr. Paulson knows his Hogarth, but his church history is at best shaky. Martha F. Bowden Kennesaw State University The English Short-Title Catalogue: Past, Present, Future, ed. Henry L. Snyder and Michael S. Smith. New York: AMS, 2003. Pp. xvi ⫹ 290. $97.50. The Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue, the greatest bibliography ever compiled , was proposed in 1975 by the late Paul J. Korshin, then ASECS’s Executive Secretary, who wrote the initial NEH grants (1976–1978), and led with dedicated industry by RobinAlstonandthenMichaelCrumpinLondonand,since1978,inAmerica, by its chief salesman, Mr. Snyder. Here the ESTC is overshadowed by the ‘‘English STC’’ that it became in 1988, after which pre-1700 publications were added, including thousands of Wing2 entries dumped in without book-in-hand examinations. The first third of this volume, after Mr. Snyder’s Preface and G. Thomas Tanselle’s Introduction, containseightessays.Groupedinfours,thefirstbeginswithMr.Tanselle’s concise recounting of project developments; thereafter Mr. Snydercontinuesthehistory into present and future spin-offs, reflecting on technological and scholarly needs; John W. Haeger of the Research Library Group generalizes about funds underwriting the project and laments the disappearance of public largesse that made it possible; and Mr. Crump, for a decade head of BL’s ESTC operations, thoughtfully recounts the project’s significance to the BL and British libraries in general—a necessary balance to all the American perspectives. Thereafter come four accounts grouped as ‘‘The ESTC in Practice ’’: David Vander Meulen and Michael S. Smith exemplify research made possible by the database; J. Paul Hunter relates how research was once more difficult; and J. Michael Smethurst records ‘‘the influence that the ESTC has had upon the . . . [database of hand-printed books created by] the Consortium of European Research Libraries.’’ Reliance on the conference’s papers here injures the volume’s intent: the first three essays should have been revised with lengthier, more detailed demonstrations of the ESTC’s utility (Mr. Korshin’s essay later offers in passing nearly equal attention to applications), and Mr. Smethurst’s reflections belong in the first grouping. The book’s middle-third contains three histories: of the English STC/NA by Mr. Snyder; the NAIP by Marcus McCorison; and the Eighteenth-Century STC by Mr. Korshin. The final third principally contains four reports to Mr. Snyder on the 1988 canvassing of the PRO by Alastair Massie and Martin Saunders. Here too the editing was insufficient, for these journals on groups and classes checked contain promises of details to be looked into. Onereviewer remarksthatthesePROreportsseemtackedontofillthevolume;however, they provide a useful introduction to materials at the National Archives. Before a spotty 109 name index, follow four appendices: ‘‘ESTC/NA Board Members’’; ‘‘International Committee Members’’; ‘‘Grants Awarded’’; and attendees in 1998. The volume somewhat fails to bend contributions into a coherent, concise unity. Mr. Snyder’s conference speculations about digitizing texts were obsolete when the book appeared—no surprise after a publication delay of five years. If only by footnotes, the editors might have ensured uniformity about the numbers of catalogued records or contributing libraries. The Index reveals big efforts overlooked, as J. L. Wood’s editing of Factotum or Karen Kloth’s editing at Göttingen. A bibliography should offer documents and publications never cited, such as the main status-report prior to thisvolume, Bloomberg-Rissman’s ‘‘Short-Title Catalogs: The Current State of Play,’’ RBML, 13 (1999), 121–128. I would have demonstrated utility by listing studies crunching ESTC data, like Don-John Dugas’s in PBSA, March 2001. Most of what else is missing cannot be expected from a celebration arguing future funding for the electronic catalogue. It is left to reviewers to complain about RLIN’s $200 annual fee for the product of public funds, and to deny the claim that the catalogue is ‘‘substantially complete’’ when— not to speak of many errors...