Rare books don’t have a
gender. However, bibliographers do and the overwhelming majority has been
male. I’m a collector drawn to new paths and over the years I’ve gathered
material related to early American women bibliographers active in the pre-WWII era
before 1941. My recent research on Henrietta C. Bartlett raised a
deceptively simple question. Who was the first American women
bibliographer to compose a bibliography and have her name on the
title-page? The following essay attempts to answer that question and shed
light on other pre-WWII practitioners. I felt like an explorer in an
uncharted jungle at times, machete in hand, hacking away but making
progress. I have little doubt I have missed a find or two in my
exploration and welcome input.
The parameters of my
search are bibliographies focusing on rare books and / or first editions. These
would be of book-length or substantial pamphlets (no separates or offprints)
and explicitly credit the woman bibliographer as author / compiler.
The definition of a bibliography demands some leeway as there are
many different forms. A simple checklist for example would not qualify in
my hunt but a well-researched short-title catalogue might.
There are cases of
biblio-women assisting with bibliographies (including some of the women noted
here) who should have garnered a varsity position on the title-page but instead
were relegated to an acknowledgement. But that is another story beyond
the present scope.
I contemplated saving
the earliest located bibliography for last to heighten the intrigue but that
just didn’t seem bibliographical. So, let’s get to it. The
oldest example I’ve found is Nina E. Browne’s A Bibliography of
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company,
1905). The book was designed by Bruce Rogers and issued in an edition of
550 copies. The publisher’s prospectus states that “It contains, along
with the entry of Hawthorne’s published work, whether in book form or in old
magazines or newspapers, everything that can be discovered in print about
Hawthorne, in both books and periodicals. Much pains have been given to
the arrangement to make it as helpful as possible, both to the literary worker,
and to the collector.”
