Sir Walter Wilson Greg: : A Collection of His Writings

Citation

Malcolm Watson, W. (1999), "Sir Walter Wilson Greg: : A Collection of His Writings", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 5, pp. 2-8. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.5.2.1

The first book in this series covered the work of R.B. McKerrow and was published in 1974. Now, 24 years later we have a publication covering the work of Sir Walter Wilson Greg, with whom the name of R.B. McKerrow is so closely linked when examining the development of bibliography. As will be seen from the bibliography of Greg’s writings at the end of this publication, his work spans the period 1900‐1959 and during this time he made an outstanding contribution to textual, analytical and descriptive bibliography.

This book, which reproduces ten of Greg’s contributions to bibliography, can only partially indicate his significance in the development of bibliography. The editor signals Greg’s importance in the preface and F.P. Wilson’s article on Greg reprinted from the 1960 Proceedings of the British Academy provides an excellent review of Greg’s work as recognised at that time. Further elaboration of Greg’s work is provided by Robin Myers’ contribution which is reprinted from the Antiquarian Book Monthly Review of February 1978. Following these introductory contributions on Greg, one is presented with the ten Greg contributions covering a variety of aspects of bibliography, all of which have appeared in prestigious publications and which are likely to have been read by the majority of scholars involved in analytical, descriptive or textual bibliography. Readers will find contributions on False dates in Shakespearian quartos, Principles of emendation in Shakespeare, The present [1930] position of bibliography, The function of bibliography, Bibliographical analysis, The First Folio and Rationale of copy text. The book finishes with a bibliography of the works of Sir Walter Wilson Greg covering his books, principal articles and books edited by him.

It is difficult to do more than note this publication, since its contribution to bibliographical studies appears to be that it simply brings a few of Greg’s writings together, along with a two‐and‐a‐half page preface. Such contributions are already readily available in many academic and special libraries relevant to the subject and one wonders therefore how many libraries will be prepared to pay £61.75 merely for the convenience of having those contributions together, especially with the constraints on budgets which are currently being experienced.