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A Lesson In Bibliography

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Jerry Morris

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Jan 12, 2003, 8:32:00 PM1/12/03
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Note: This is very long so grab a soda or a beer!

Several months ago, I picked up a sorry-looking dictionary from the
1700s from one of my favorite ebay sellers.

The binding was cracked. The front cover was missing. The title page
was missing. In fact, the first word in the dictionary was the word,
"Abruption", and the last word was the word, "With". Pinned to the
"HAR" page was the following faded undated note:

"This book was purchased by my great great great grand father in England
in the year 1730 (and) has been kept as a family relic ever since."
A.L. Hughes

Don't ask me why, but my first thought was that this dictionary was an
early Johnson Dictionary, which didn't make sense because Johnson's
Dictionary wasn't published until 1755. Nevertheless, I thought it
would be a fun bibliographical challenge to see if I could identify the
dictionary, what with the missing pages and all!

When I received the book, I immediately verified that it was an abridged
edition of the Johnson Dictionary, comparing the definitions and authors
cited with my 1785 Johnson Dictionary........That's as far as I
got.......

Chapman & Hall's Bibliography of Johnson's Works didn't help me
identify which edition I had. Not one of my other books helped. Nothing
on the web helped. I did surmise that the dictionary was published
before 1800 because of the uƒe of the long "s".

Enter, Sandy Malcolm, researcher extraordinaire! Sandy remembered
seeing quite a bit of info about Johnson Dictionaries in J.D. Fleeman's
Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Johnson at a book fair one time, and
suggested I check Fleeman.

I must admit I wasn't too impressed with J.D. Fleeman. I have the 1775
first issue, with the 12-line errata, of Johnson's Journey to the
Western Islands of Scotland, and periodically check its current value on
the web. About a year ago, I was surprised to see a Dublin edition
listed as the true first edition! The bookseller cited J.D. Fleeman as
saying someone took a copy of the plates and published the pirate
edition in Dublin before the London edition as published, making the
Dublin edition the first edition.

In my mind, anyone who cites a pirate edition as a first edition is not
someone I would refer to in bibliographical matters. It didn't matter,
because I couldn't locate a local source that had a copy of Fleeman, and
I wasn't about to spend $400 for a set.

Enter Sandy Malcolm again! Sandy went to Edinburgh over the holidays to
visit his family and did a little research in Fleeman's bibliography for
me.

First off, from my collation, he determined that my dictionary was one
of eight editions published between 1756 and 1786:

Vol I : (pi)2 a-c4 d4 (-d4 = Vol II pi 1) B-3Y4 3Z2   (287 leaves)
Vol II : (pi)1 (= Vol I d4) 4A2 4B-6Y4 6Z2              
(273 leaves)

Sandy also determined what leaves I was missing, a total of 31 leaves
altogether.

.....Instead of being the narrator of this bibliographical quest, let
me just copy the pertinent parts of the e-mails which crossed the big
pond from Sandy in Edinburgh:

.....Now to distinguish the 8 editions from one another; the easiest
way to do this seems to be to use press figures (which I've read
articles about, but never bothered to look at before). These are single
numbers (or occasionally symbols) indicating which press was used to
print a particular sheet; since the two sides of a sheet could be
printed on different presses, prior to folding, there are sometimes two
press figures per gathering, but as far as I can see for this book, each
gathering only has a single figure, which I suppose implies that both
sides of the sheet were printed on the same press. As I say, I haven't
bothered to look for these before, and my mum's house (where I'm
currently staying) only seems to contain 3 18th century books, only one
of which has press figures; in this book, they seem to occur on the left
hand side at the bottom of the page - roughly where catchwords would be
if they were on the LHS instead of the RHS. I'm sure they'll be easy
enough to find once you start looking for them.

Here are some press figures for the first eight editions:
1st Ed,1756: B3v-2,C4v-1,D4v-3,E1v-4;4B4v-7,4C2v-5,4D4r-6,4E3r-8 2nd
Ed,1760: B3r-4,C3v-5,D4r-7,E4r-6;4B4v-8,4C3r-5,4D3r-8,4E1v-2 3rd
Ed,1766: B4v-3,C4r-2,D1v-3,E2v-3;4B1r-5,4C3v-8,4D3r-6,4E2v-8 4th
Ed,1770: B3v-+,C3r-8,D3r-1,E4r-*;4B2r-6,4C4v-9,4D4v-6,4E2v-7 5th
Ed,1773: B4v-3,C3v-7,D1v-2,E4r-6;4B1v-2,4C1v-3,4D3r-1,4E3v-1 6th
Ed,1778: B1v-8,C1v-8,D3v-*,E4v-5;4B3v-|,4C4v-7,4D4r-7,4E3r-5 7th
Ed,1783: B4v-2,C4v-5,D3v-8,E2v-1;4B2v-4,4C2v-7,4D4r-p,4E2v-+ 8th
Ed,1786: B4v-6,C1v-1,D3v-3,E4v-4;4B4r-7,4C4v-4,4D3r-1,4E1v-2

I dare say you're wondering "What the hell does all this mean?". In the
(highly compressed) 8 lines above, I've shown the first 4 press figures
which your copy has in each of Vols I and II. These will be in
gatherings B-E in Vol I and 4B-4E in Vol II; r and v signify recto and
verso, as usual, so "C4v-1" means that on the verso of the 4th leaf of
gathering C, the figure 1 should appear somewhere in the bottom margin
(probably on the left hand side of the page). In fact, you should be
able to just check the press figure in gathering C for a quick match,
because the press figure and its location together are unique in each
edition. Assuming one of them matches, you can check the other 7 press
figures I've listed for that editionjust to be sure. If none of them
match, it's back to square one unfortunately (so I hope one of them
does!).

Few notes on the info in the 8 lines of press figures above - where I've
used a +, this looks more like a dagger when printed. Two symbols I
can't reproduce; in the 6th edition, the figure on 4B3v is like an
upright dagger with a hilt at each end (I've used | to signify this) and
in the 7th edition, the symbol on 4D4r (which I've designated by 'p') is
a squiggly paragraph mark (or something). I'm sure there are technical
names for these things, but I have no idea what they are, although I'm
sure a printer could tell you. (Actually, I've just realised you don't
have 4B3 in Vol II, so the double-dagger thing's irrelevant. That also
applies to one of the B press figures in Vol I, and 4 more of the 4B
figures in Vol II, so I guess they won't be any help in identifying the
edition either.) Finally, the figure 5 on 4E3r in the 1778 (6th) edition
is upside down.

If you get a match from one of the 8 lines above, let me know which one
it is, and I'll pass on all the info from Fleeman's entry in the
bibliography. He has some notes on when exactly the sheets were printed,
how many copies there were and so on, for each edition, which will all
be most interesting no doubt. Let me know how you get on.
All the best - and Happy New Year .........Sandy

Now, back to me, the narrator:
Needless to say, I was amazed that indeed there were press figures
printed on the leaves of my dictionary, and from the relevant pages, I
was able to determine that I had the 1770 Fourth edition of Johnson's
Dictionary! But Sandy wasn't done yet! He sends me Fleeman's
description of my dictionary!

....Finally, here's the additional info on the 1770 fourth ed of
Johnson's Abridged Dictionary from Fleeman (who gives this edition the
reference number 56.1DA/7, derived from the year of first publication
(1756), first work of Johnson's published in that year (.1), DA
presumably standing for Dictionary Abridged, and the /7 indicating that
it was the 7th edition of the work (there having been 3 Dublin editions,
plus the 3 earlier London editions prior to this one):
"Paper: White, laid; Large post (uncut: 8 1/4 x 5 1/4 in.); no vis. wmk.
Type: Preface: pica, Grammar: long primer and bourgeois, text:
bourgeois; 2 cols./p., vert. rules (exc. Prefaces). Rows of flowers
separate alphabetical sections at I. Q1v, 2G1v, 2X4v, 3F1, 3K3, 3P2; II.
4E4v, 4M2, 4O2, 4R2v,5E3v, 5F3, 6F1, 6M4, 6T1v, 6Z1, 6Z2. Tp.
(Justitia): I. 3Z2v. References: Rothschild 1240; Alston v. 197 (23
copies); Kahn 22; Cordell J-50; ESTC: t072103.
Notes: Of the 70 sheets of this edn. William Strahan printed 45 in 5,000
copies in Apr. 1770 (L: Add. MS 48803, fo. 23v). At Trade sales W.
Nicoll paid £19 for a 40th share on 8 Oct. 1765, and W. Griffin bought
a 40th share for £27 on 18 Sept. 1766. A receipted invoice from
Longman to Nourse of 1770, signed by Longman on 4 April 1771, shows him
to have supplied Nourse with 22 sets in that year. (Footnote 1)
Copies: O (Vet A5. e. 2343-44);
USA: DLC, Hyde ('Cayley'), ICN, InTHI3, [Liebert], MB, MH (*EC75 B9375
Zz770j; 'Robert Burns'), NIC, OCi, WiM;
Japan: [Kenkyusha, Kyoto];
UK: AWn (lacks vol. I), BMp, Ct (Rothschild 1240, inscr. SJ 'To Mr
Maclean
Teacher of Languages in the Island of Coll, from the Authour'. Booklist
120; Life v. 553-4), Gp (F 493880), L (1490 a.32), LCu, LICj.
Footnote 1: See above 55.4D1 n. 6, p. 416; Ximenes Rare Books, Inc. New
York, Occasional List, 102 'A-C' [1994], 179."

...And back to me, the narrator:
Needless to say I have a much higher regard for the late J.D. Fleeman.
As for Sandy Malcolm, I'm kind of jealous, because he had all the fun in
researching this bibliographical quest!
:-) I did learn a lesson in bibliography from him and Fleeman though!

Jerry Morris

http://community-2.webtv.net/MoiBibliomaniac/MOISBOOKSABOUTBOOKS/index.html
or
www.moislibrary.com

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