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The Grolier Club Library Classification
Scheme
THE LIBRARY OF THE GROLIER CLUB
is organized according to a scheme devised in 1901
by the Club's first Librarian, Henry Watson Kent,
with the assistance of fellow Grolier member
Richard Hoe Lawrence. Kent had been a student in
Melvil Dewey's first class (1887) in the
newly-founded library school of Columbia
University, and the Kent-Lawrence system will be
familiar to anyone who has used a library arranged
according to Dewey Decimal classification. It forms
a useful outline of the scope of the Club's focused
collections in the fields of bibliography, printing
history and practice, and related book
arts.
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00-08 General
Bibliography
00 Theory and practice of bibliography
01 Bibliography by country
Emphasis on national literatures. Catalogues
of works printed in a particular country are included
either with bibliography of the history of that
country (01.3/940--) or with the history of printing
(31.2--)
01.2 Bibliography of individuals
Includes exhibition catalogues, collected
correspondence, and biographical works, as well as
formal bibliographies. Emphasis is on descriptive
bibliographies, i.e., those giving collations and
illustrations, rather than simply enumerative lists of
works by an about an author.
01.3 Bibliography by topic
Bibliographies of subjects other than book or
bibliographical topics.
01.4 Pseudonyms
01.5 Imaginary books and libraries
02 Authorship
02.3 Forgers and forgeries
03 Publishing and copyright
04 Bookselling
04.4 Bookseller
catalogues
One of the largest collections in the Grolier Club
Library. The general goal is the preservation of
catalogues which have value for bibliographical study,
based on the importance of the material catalogued, or
the high standards of description, or the presence of
unique material, such as manuscripts and autographs.
The Grolier Club collections are classified by
country, and sub-arranged into four chronological
groups: up to 1850, 1851 to 1900, 1901 to 1950, and
1951 to date. The historical collection includes some
of the very earliest known bookseller catalogues (John
Leggatt's catalogue of 1637, and William London's 1658
Most Vendible Books, for example), and there
are complete runs of almost all the major American,
English and European dealers down to the present
day.
05 Book auctions
05.4 Book auction
catalogues
With bookseller catalogues, catalogues of book
auctions form the core of the Library's research
collection. Auction catalogues from all countries are
represented, but the Library's holdings are
particularly rich in English, American and French
sales. The Club owns a high proportion of the
17th-century English sale catalogues listed in the
British Museum List of Catalogues of English Book
Sales 1676-1900, for instance, and these are
supplemented by extensive holdings of significant
18th-century sales as well. The collection of
19th-century English sales is quite fine, highlighted
by important copies of catalogues annotated by Sir
Thomas Phillipps, William Morris, Guglielmo Libri, and
other famous collectors, as well as nearly complete
runs of auction houses such as Puttick & Simpson,
and Sotheby. The collection of American auction sales
is by no means comprehensive, but a number of the most
notable early sales recorded in American Book
Auction Catalogues (compiled by former Club
Librarian George McKay) are represented, including
Buckminster (1812), Everett and Tichnor (1815),
Jefferson (1829), and many others. The Club's archive
of some four thousand French catalogues, representing
most of the important sales held from the 17th century
to the present day, is certainly the largest such
collection outside France, and is much consulted by
scholars. Records for the French sales are now being
entered into the SCIPIO
database, and plans are under way to catalogue the
rest of the auction sale collection in the same
manner.
06 Libraries and library science, general
07 Institutional libraries
Subarranged by country. The focus here is on
catalogues (and, to a lesser extent, histories) of
notable institutional libraries.
08 Private
libraries
Another important focus of the
Library--suitable to an organization of collectors and
bibliophiles--is material documenting personal
collecting and the building of private libraries. The
emphasis is on catalogues of personal collections,
either printed (these often in very small numbers) or
in manuscript. Important personages and famous
bibliomanes are represented--Mme. de Pompadour,
Napoleon, Lord Spencer, Sir Thomas Phillipps--but the
research strength of the collection lies in its
coverage of the whole range of private collecting, and
particularly those catalogues which document more
modest libraries.
08.33 Jean Grolier. The Library owns a
number of Grolier bindings, as well as several
contemporary works dedicated to him, and most of the
later secondary literature on his collection.
10-19 The Art of the Book
10 Book exhibitions, etc.
11 Special forms of books
12 Special genres of books
13 Newspapers and periodicals
14 Rare and curious books
16 Works on particular books
Richard de Bury. Philobiblon. In 1899
the Grolier Club published an edition of the
Philobiblon in Latin and English, edited by
Andrew Fleming West. In 1903 the Grolier paid for the
commemorative slab on the tomb of Richard de Bury in
Durham Cathedral. The Library has several editions,
including a copy of the third (Paris, Petit, 1500).
17 Book collecting
17.5 Bibliomania, or "book madness".
18 Book clubs
20-29 Writing. Palaeography.
Manuscripts.
21 Palaeography
22 Alphabet
23 Manuscripts
23.7 Catalogues of manuscripts
Catalogues of individual library holdings,
arranged by country and city.
24 Special classes of manuscripts
25 Special manuscripts
27 Calligraphy
28 Autographs
30-39 Typography.
Printing
31 Printing history
31.1-31.6 History of printing by date
Catalogues of books of the 15th through the
20th century
32 History of printing by country
Catalogues of books by country
33 .2 Biographies and studies of individual
printers
This is a large collection covering printers
of all periods and places, arranged alphabetically.
Every attempt is made to keep it comprehensive and
up-to-date.
33.5 Government presses
Works on the Government Printing Office, the
Stationery Office, the Imprimerie Nationale, etc.
33.6 Printers' marks
33.9 Private presses
34 Specimens of fine printing
35 Technical aspects of printing
35.25 Works on famous type founders, with
specimens.
35.3 Ink
35.4 Paper
35.5 Composition
36 Printing presses
37 Other printing processes
38 Ornament in printing
39 Printed matter other than books
40-49 Book Illustration. Prints.
Engraving.
41-42 History of book illustration
43 Reference works on illustrators and engravers
43.5 Works on individual illustrators
Chiefly artists who have illustrated books,
with emphasis on figures such as Beardsley, Bewick,
Cruikshank, Rockwell Kent, and Whistler.
44 Special classes of illustrated books
45 Engraving
46 Illustration processes
46.11 Wood engraving and woodcuts
46.2 Intaglio and etching processes
46.24 Mezzotint
46.3 Lithography
46.4 Color illustration
48 Illustrated ephemera
48.1 Playing cards
48.2 Posters
48.3 Cartoons, caricatures, etc.
50-59 Bookbinding.
50.7 Exhibitions
50.8 Catalogues of individual library holdings
51-52 History
53-54 Studies of individual binders and
binderies
55 Special kinds of binding
59 Practical aspects of binding
60-69 Bookplates.
62 History
63-65 Styles, and designers
69 Heraldry
Periodicals
Includes annuals and other regularly issued
serials. The Library has an extensive collection in the
areas of bibliography and collecting, with a selection of
library journals devoted mainly to rare books. Current
subscriptions number about 150.
For a list of current periodicals, click here.
Special Collections
Rare Printed Books
This group contains all the monographs in the
Library printed before 1801. In scope and organization
the rare book collection mirrors that of the Library
as a whole. It is strong in rare and early
bibliographical works, important 17th- and
18th-century institutional library catalogues, and
early histories of printing. For a description of the
Library's rare and early bookseller and book auction
catalogues, see under 04.4
Bookseller catalogues, and 05.4
Book auction catalogues.
Examples of fine book making
The Library maintains an important
collection documenting fine book making throughout
the centuries, which includes illuminated
manuscripts, incunabula,and other early printing,
as well as the best examples of the modern fine
press movement.
The Dibdin Collection
Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847) was a
gregarious and loquacious clergyman who was also a
passionate collector and lover of books. He
published numerous gossipy accounts of collectors
and libraries in early 19th century England (a
hotbed of bibliomania, or "book madness"), and
although his prose is a bit ornate for modern
tastes, it is a small price to pay for boundless
enthusiasm and keen insight. The Library has a good
collection of Dibdin's printed works--including
Dibdin's own copies of Specimen Bibliothecae
Brittanicae, A Bibliographical ... Tour in
France and Germany, and Reminiscences of a
Literary Life--as well as letters,
bibliographical notes, and other material.
The Phillipps Collection
This collection of some 2500 books,
manuscripts, drawings and letters documents the life
and extraordinary library of Sir Thomas Phillipps
(1792-1872). It was put together by Club member
Harrison Horblit, who is best known in the
bibliophilic world as a collector of landmarks in the
history of science--he was the prime mover behind the
Club's exhibition One Hundred Books Famous in
Science, and editor of the eponymous catalogue.
Before his death in 1988 Horblit directed that his
Phillipps collection be given to the Grolier Club, and
in 1995 it was transferred to the Club and housed in a
room specially created for it. The collection includes
a complete set of works printed by Sir Thomas's own
idiosyncratic Middle Hill Press (many of these are
Phillipps' own annotated file copies), several runs of
bookseller and book auction catalogues owned and
annotated by him, a complete series of printed
catalogues of the Bibliotheca Phillippica (as well as
several autograph manuscipt inventories), drawings,
letter-books, and juvenilia. For a more detailed
description of the collection, click here.
The Cockerell/Peirce Collection
A collection of more than 300 autograph
letters from Sir Sydney Cockerell (1867-1962, friend
and business partner of William Morris, collector of
rare manuscripts, and Director of the Fitzwilliam
Museum), to Harold Peirce (d. 1932), Philadelphia book
collector and early Grolier Club member. The letters
date from 1897 through 1931, and document Cockerell's
hitherto largely unrecorded activities as a bookseller
and book agent. Peirce's side of the correspondence is
represented by carbon copies from about 1906, and
there is much material concerning his collections.
Aside from revealing an interesting and little-known
aspect of Cockerell's bookish activities, the
collection provides a detailed account of the
relationship between an American book collector and
his English agent in the heyday of American
collecting, as well as fresh insight into the book
world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century.
Prints and ephemera
Archives
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