Rare Book Descriptive Bibliography

LIS 689: Rare Books & Special Collections, Pratt Institute, Spring 2017

This paper was developed in Professor Kyle Triplett’s course, LIS 689: Rare Books and Special Collections, as an intensive bibliographic study of one first edition copy of John Dryden’s An evening's love, or, The mock-astrologer. Acted at the Theater-Royal by His Majesties servants from the New York Public Library’s Rare Book Collection, call number *KC 1671 (Dryden, J. Evening's love). 

In composing a descriptive bibliography, I assessed the value, condition, and materiality of the volume, including collation formula, design attributes, paper, type elements, and binding on-site at NYPL’s Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room. I was able to examine this rare book alongside a digital surrogate from the Internet Archive (Boston Public Library) for comparison purposes, which was a complete volume containing two leaves missing from NYPL’s copy.

In addition to directly observing the book at-hand, this project entailed comprehensive research regarding the value and history of the volume, key figures associated with this book’s production, and the book’s provenance. I referenced a variety of resources including the English Short Title Catalogue, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Encyclopedia Britannica, American Book Prices Current, and the Gravell Watermark Archive while working on this paper.

View the paper, titled “An Evening’s Love, or the Mock-Astrologer Descriptive Bibliography,” here.