The persistence of Ephemera: bibliographical value of part wrappers

Abstract

Those of us who defend the bibliographic value of part wrappers sometimes feel akin to the charitable champions of somewhat dubious damsels in distress, who, though a bit shopworn and artful, are still amiable enough to reveal to us the chink in the dragon's armour or the secret passageway out of the maze. We are grateful for the information, but skeptical of the obligation incurred. Such ephemeral productions as paper part wrappers can indeed show the way through the maze of 18th- and 19th century publishing, if such wrappers as are left to us after the vagaries of previous ownership are preserved and documented. The persistence of such ephemera is of particular utility to botanical bibliographers of this period, one significant for its advances in systematics and notorious for its bibliographical complexity. To support this view of the bibliographic value of this fragile material, I have drawn examples of its aid from the Bibliographia Huntiana (BH) files at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. The BH files include extensive bibliographic information on approximately 35,000 books and 50,000 periodical articles published from 1730 to 1840 in the field of botany. Much of this elusive information on dates and circumstances of publication, as well as extent and composition of parts in both text and plates, has been gleaned from contempor­ ary announcements and reviews, and from close examination of the works them­ selves. The Hunt Institute's library holdings are the basis for only a part of the data in these detailed files, which include photographic documentation of titlepages - and part wrappers — of specific copies of works held in some 30 of the world's botanical collections. My examples are particularly drawn from the floristic subset of the 1730-1840 botanical literature, now receiving particular attention as the Institute draws close to publishing this information on approxi­ mately 5,000 titles. To promote an awareness of the bibliographic value of part wrappers in historical systematics, I will discuss the following areas: Changes in bibliographic al attitude towards the value of part wrappers, including a brief survey of the title-page and these adjuncts; the perils and pleasures of 18th-and 19th-century wrapper-titles for natural history publications; and the need for careful preservation of these fragile items.