W. W. Greg as Bibliographer

Abstract

In Greg's first major work, A List of English Plays Written before 1643 and Printed before 1700 (1900) but particularly in Essay Introductory printed in A List of Masques, Pageants,&c. Supplementary to A List of English Plays (1902), he laid foundations of his monumental A Bibliography of English Printed Drama to Restoration (London: Bibliographical Society, 1939–1959 in 4 volumes). Frequently scorning bibliographical status of checklists prepared for literary purposes but denying that it was task of bibliographers to make descriptive bibliographies (of systematic kind), Greg described his own Bibliography to be merely descriptive. In papers throughout his career he defined bibliography as the science of material transmission of literary texts, defined scope of bibliographical investigation, and established essence of bibliographical method as 'critical'—now termed 'descriptive' bibliography—and textual criticism and critical bibliography are synonymous. The Bibliography is widely regarded as a monument of descriptive bibliography.