Bowers 1949

Bowers, Fredson. Principles of Bibliographical Description. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949.

Descriptive Bibliography

catalogue or handlist: compilation of titles on a given subject

descriptive or analytical bibliography: describing printed variations of a text

(some "bibliographical catalogues" exist between these two forms)

"The concern of the descriptive bibliographer ... is to examine every available copy of an edition of a book in order to describe in bibliographical terms the characteristics of an ideal copy of this edition, to distinguish between issues and variants of the edition, to explain and describe the printing and textual history of the edition, and finally to arrange it in a correct and logical relationship to other editions." (6)

See Belanger, "Descriptive Bibliiography."

bibliographies may help librarians and collectors identify the books in their possession, "but from the bibliographer's point of view this possibility should be only a by-product of his work. The facts, the distinguishing 'points' are the necessary main concern of the collector or librarian. these are of crucial importance in bibliography, too, but only as the penultimate step to textual and literary criticism." (8)

"true bibliography is the bridge to textual, which is to say literary, criticism." (9)

"The purpose, then, of the physical description of the book is twofold: to serve as a basis for the analysis of the method of publication, which has a direct bearing on the relations and transmissions of texts; to provide sufficient evidence for readers to identify books in their possession as being members of the precise state, issue, impression, and edition of the 'ideal copy' listed, or as being unrecorded variants requiring further bibliographical investigation." (23)

symbols must be standardized for bibliography to retain meaning (24-5)