(c) 1982, Times NewspapersThe Shorter New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature

Doc ref: TLS-1982-0507 Date: May 7, 1982

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BlBUOGRAPHY TLS MAy' 7 1982 : 519

Cutting down the canon By Julian Roberts

CEOa

could begin with t Patrick (who had probably never herd f the ngli h) or GiJdas (who did not think of them as producers of literature) and ulti-mately include "all writin in book-form (whether in ngii h or Latin) that can tiU be said to po ome

~~e;~:n~~~ th b ~~~r~~ ~J ~:a~~e year 1900". The enorm us expansJ n m English tudie , particularly in America, required a revi i n of

A visit to a neighbouring book hop f~~~~:~Ch fr~~ a1tbeadYh:~ed J revealed that the current price of the G W t .. 1957) Th N New Cambridge Bibliography of c~"1r wa! s::,~c: to a~kno!led~~ English Literature ha reached £243. that the literature of the Common-After the texts , thi i the first book wealth (though not of Ireland) were

~~~~ea~dai~e[s o:h~~f~~ }~~~~~: now as independent as that of the United States. Yet by the tyPO-

that a shorter NCBEL has now graphical geniu of the Cambndge appeared. Press the increased knowledge of the

cr~~r,or1.in~. C:~~so:,as~c~o~ :"~t~rO~~~~ hor~~t~I~~i ~ri!J ~r1J;~ 'H~t~~~;ct;~~Ii~t L~;r~:~: !?~ a~~~t~J~te~~~e~ha~eo:ol~~:: ~d ~? ~93~t8) tOe~~r!aICen~ ~r'~~ ~e f0U;~~01~~~9sbhe wh~~er h~J C!lEL bibliographie .. uch \"as the been for some time in preparation leI urely pace of EnglIsh studIes that was redesigned to range with the thirty-four years elap d between the . ea~ volume , and a final (rather

~~nSub~~~~~~~nsr~~n:a ~!fL;~ in 19~f.0ry) index volume appeared

All the Americana By Douglas W. Bryant

PETER SNOW (e....,.):

The Ullited SUites: A Guide to Ub-nry Holdlap lit the UK

~'!cf~ WD:~ier~~ t!~~~; ~":f~:' ence 01Nationai and Univer ity lib-raries . £14. 085350 183 1

The years ince World War II have seen throughout Great Britain an un-precedented growtb in the tudy of

~~:s~i::e~u~tt~:~~ : I:s ~~~Zl~~y~i~ place in the world - in bort , all that

~:kth~;t~~~eth:fi~~ ~:i~"m~~~~ studies received y tematic attention in Briti h universitie for the first time. In the mid-19SOs tbere were

:~ ~~r:ca~:~ir~~~ te!~n~~ American ub~ects, and nearly all of

~i~:ibiii~~sl.a~~~ t~neirth~ri~~~ more than 400 teachers are giving

C;~;seB~~i ~~~rv~iti~u~iTh~n Bri~~~ Association for American Studies, founded in 1955, nouri he with a membership of 500 scholars, and

~~~g tbean~n8~~tiaicti;~~~ar~ American tudies three time a year. Concurrent with thi expan ion in teaching and research, there has been substantial development of lib-rary resources to upport scholarship in American tudies, and there are some 250 librarian in Britain who work -with United State bibliography and library materials.

The recent publicati n of Peter now's The Unikd Slates: A Guide to

Library Holdings in lhe UK i a monumental contribution to the study of America in Great Britain. This i a guide to printed, microform and audio-vi ual m teri I in 350 lib-raries of all types in the United

~~t~ 3;u:/e ~ M~~t;~iP~rn;;~J~~ 10 America in Great Brilain and Ire-fond, edited by John W. Raimo and published in 1979 as a much ex-panded revi '00 of the ori 'nal 1961

tr~o:. ~eB . n~:.v ~fum!"~ Mi: pi ments the guide to United tates ne papen in Briti h Ii rarie tbat were i in 195 and 1974 by BAA . And when the Union Caw-/o8~ of Uni/ed lales tudi Periodi als in the Unit d Kingdom , currently beln mpiled by Dr

th Deering, i fUbli hed (prob-abl in late 1 a rem rkable schol rly qu rtet will have been brought int being. luCien will find them an Indi pen Ie set of biblio-graphic t , the m re valuabl ~ r bein widely availa Ie .

' Snow's guide i Itogether admir-able , witb re peel both to content and to organization ; there are entries for every library in Great Britain that has any substantial holdings in United States publication . In res-ponse to advice from the BAAS the descriptive notes for each library Ire as detailed and ,pecific a is fea ible ; they are also ufficientlr exten ive to

~ o~::;~~:;: f~:c~C:teri~stoi:~~ field and attempting to locate pecific works. The coverage by subject i "in the arts , humaniti and social sciences and even in the sciences where relevant to the tudy of Amer-ican thought or society" .

The volulI\e i divided into two parts: the entrie for each library listed alphabetically under the city where located anda~ain alphabeu-

~~ex:'S::t ~~~ J::'TOcati~~ ~ =~ mul~~~:r: woreu~~~:e~ categories and audio-vi ual collec-tions. There i a helpful table of contents and a marvellously con-structed and detailed index that brings together in one place refer-ences to all entries in the body of the work . These aid , together with the excellent presentation of the in-formation in the library entrie them-selves, make thi complex reference work surpri ingly e y to use.

The information in the entrie for individual libraries i clearly set out and provides all data pertinent to the work of a scholar in American studies. First Ii ted are tbe re~lar

~~~ ~~or::J a~r~ri~ cf~~ ~e~ a ~a~b:~; ~:~~o~ e~'f~~~ eulation of books and access to the stacks; and the locatio of Amer-ican materials in vario parts of the library. Thi is followed by the iden-tification or brief descrifltion of tbe

~r:ffij; :n~c~~~nco ~~~I? Ic!~ and union catalogues ptoviding hi . graphic access to them. There are notes on special faci litie ~ r photo-copying, microform, re ding, typing rooms and the like. mally, there are fine descriptio of the American collectio themselv , Th include some account of hi torical develop-ment , descripti of pecial coli

~~~ or~~~~:1 fe:~U; ~bj~ ~b~; bave received concentrated attenti n. These essay on li rary resource af not imply bare Ii ting! : they are sufficiently fuJI to aive the re d~ r an understanding of ill nature f th collections well a se f thei.r extent and quality. F r i tance, the description of the h ldin in tbe several parts of the B leian Li rary cover elgbt pa e ; ten are devoted to the Britisb Library ReCer nce and

eorge Watson, the veteran editor of the Supplement to CBEL , Volume 1- 3 of New CBEL , and of two editions of a Concise CBEL , h now produced a Shorter New CBEL in a Ingle volume. The credit lie thi time rather with the pbotolitbo-

rh:~:j~ ~~II o:!! 10~ena Prtec1W~ triumpb. 1,622 columns are about 35mm thick, whereas a similar num-ber w nearly 40 mm thielt in New

BEL, Volume 3; this without sacri-ficing the opacity of the paper. The type-size does not seem to have '\>Cen reduced , despit~e exten Ive use of reprinting techniques. Only a light change of colour where, for

example, dates of death have been stripped in , betrays a new setting of

2~R.sg~~~;!~) eh~p~~~,: beavily cut down that resetting was evidently required:

The professed intention has been to epitomiz.e the New CBEL , while preserving the arrangement and con-ventions of the parent work . The economy has been made in four way ; by the reduction , u uall'y but not invariably slight , of deUiil m the record of "primary" material (that i

Lending Divisions; three to the Uni-versity of Glasgow, four to the Uni-versity of Sussex, and three to the Birmingham Public Librarie .

Thi Guide is by far the most ambitious project yet undertaken by the American Studies Library Group, founded in 1978 and now known as the Advisory Committee on American Studies of the Standin.s Conference of National and Urn-versity Libraries (SCONUL). The

~ro~lI ,Oi'::U:~Ch J,~ o:AAf.°~re British Library Lnding Division , which published the book, and the US International Communication Agency, which provided a generous ~ant tbat made it possible for Peter

theOB~I!:nLfb~, fFfn~~ ~~ credit is due to Snow himself for the extraordinary thoroughness and un-common speed with which he com-pleted the task. He contrived to assimilate information from several hundred questionnaires and to make extended visits to more than 130 libraries throughout Britain in just over a year. Snow's accomplishment in this outstanding publication will merit the gratitude of student and scholars for years to come. And even

. ~ ~If ~~tre~~; ~;: ~:~~~~ a revised edition that will inevitably be re uirect as library collections of Amencana grow.

It i not ~ible to conclude these remarks WIthout reference to the American Trust for the British Lib-r ry , wbich was established three years ago in the United States. The primary aim of the Trust i to raise fund (initially five million dollars) to enable the Reference Divi ion of the Briti h Library to enrich it collec-ti n of United States publications

~mt'ilie rat~tfssO!v:,n~l~9sor.~ ~~~~~:It~ i:ec::e~?a:C~ the dates. Between th se years, however, inadequate acqu 'f n fun re ulted in gaps that are broad nd deep. These must be filled so

that the Briti h national library can upport serious research in all peets of American tudi . To

date, more than SSOO, h been contributed to the Tru t fo r t purcb of books and file of jour-n 1 and newspapers that are now fI win teadily acr tbe Atlantic. It i gratifying to be able to report that so trong a start b been made on wh t Nicolas Barker 'bed (TLS, January 9, 19 1) "a venture as imagina tive as it is ener u ". Much remains to be done , however , 'nce interest in American tudie in

Britain . co tantly enlar&ln , Peter now's Guide t tiffes. Re-

~eri:n *~ ~f! th:Tnrrhg L~e than wei m : they

work by the producers of English literature) ; the drastic excision of "secondary" material (historical, cri-tical and explicatory material, usually in periodical rather than in mano-grapb form) on these writers; the reducti n o( both primary and secon-dary m terial by and on writers wbo are not considered to be " literary";

:!::aa!>'hi~h ~: ~~:n~r:~:o ~g "~rt~:~;"r ~n~l~~~ section "Book production and di-

g;~u~~Jne'~~~,~er1fra!~}~~O~~~ "Education" and "Newspapers and ~::,~~al,9~ne; about 330 col-

The effect has thus been to slim the New CBEL down in the direc-tion of a detailed record of literary oU!l?ut in ' the traditional "imagina-tive' genre and to ensure that the "primary" dog i not wagged by an enormous "secondary" tail. . The work of Joyce in Volume 4 occupied

~';,U!v~.fe~; ;a ~ie=~~ :::.':~ and a half pages long. Watson has reduced the two sections to approxi-mate parity.

Thu the Shorter NCBEL will find

~h;;:ili:stt~e~c::n~e~t~ uI!:'f~ most traditional form: tbe study of a generally asreed canon of aUlbors. Conversely It will be less valuable in place wbere drama, journalism, film and televi i n scripts and sociological

~;~!,~~~n f~~~~ Ofp~~ "marginal" authon has also extended to the marginal works of "main-tream" authors, bowever. The enor-

mou Boswell canon has, for exam-ple , shrunk to exclude many of hi legal writin .

lu~i ~~~oM::~roth~~te:; of the knife; but i it filter? Wa~n has, like other pruners in wider

~d ~b~ t~e ~~DS~ ~~~ notably in the: twentieth century, and (I] have entered a number of correc-tions well" .

Not nearly enough of them. The objections that fOllow are necessarily

:h~tb~: t~ee~h~~!~I~:wtt~~L~~~~ Crovisi n of a canon of what authors

~t:;t:~"of~~eM~r1:b~~~~ WJ:.r~ t~~t ~:ar a.ri~~~~ u: manuscript was . ued by the Early English Text Society, a.'l