printed at various dates and the record of the style followed in them with reference to quotation marks. Such a study I am now making, and hope to have the results ready for publication within a year. The object of the present memorandum is to invite any printers, bibliographers, or librarians who may chance to be interested in the history of typography to communicate to me any suggestions which may aid in my research, or any notes on the origin or history of quotation marks in English printing. I am particularly anxious to locate the earliest book printed in England which used these marks, and would appreciate references to early books containing marks to indicate quotations. Research up to the present date indicates that the marks of quotation had their origin in France some time about 15801590, two commas or two turned commas in the margins being used to indicate cited passages. The practice met with favour and was soon adopted in the same or modified form by the printers of other countries. Communications may be addressed to Douglas C. McMurtrie, Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.A. Such assistance will be cordially appreciated, and will be duly acknowledged in the published report. THIS useful list serves a double purpose; it shows the student and collector what Spanish post-incunabula' (to use a continental term) can be consulted in the Museum, and it indicates to the officials of the Museum (not to mention would-be vendors and benefactors) what there is not, and therefore desirable, in the Museum collection. The second of these two aims is doubtless best served by the method adopted by Dr. Thomas of adhering to the Museum cataloguing system; but this may occasionally puzzle external workers. For instance, an inquirer after a Lunario by V. Çaragoçano (Logroño, 1594) will find himself referred from Caragoçano to Zaragozano, and thence to that strange heading Ephemerides, which has so often puzzled tyros to the British Museum Catalogue. The entry Germany-Charles V, "Emperor. Letra a Clemente septimo sobre la conuocacion ' del concilio' is also a little difficult. I am also inclined to regret the appropriation of the letter H. (in the descriptions of fifteenth-century books) to Haebler's Bibliography; to all incunabulists it is almost indissociably the abbreviation for Hain's Repertorium. 6 These are very small points of criticism; and they certainly do not blind the present reviewer from a great appreciation of this laborious and accurate piece of work. Haebler and Burger have covered the first sixty years or so of Spanish 1 Short-title Catalogue of Books printed in Spain and of Spanish Books printed elsewhere in Europe before 1601 now in the British Museum. By Henry Thomas, D.Litt. Printed by order of the Trustees, 1921, pp. viii, 102, price 75. 6d. literature, but for the second half of the sixteenth century we have hitherto been much at sea, with varying and somewhat problematical help from Antonio, Salvà, and Gallardo. Dr. Thomas takes us a big step forward, and we have now an orderly and tangible collection of material on which to work. I think his list should be appreciated in Spain as much as it is here. S. GASELEE. |