REFLECTIONS ON LIBRARIANSHIP:OBSERVATIONS ARISING FROM

EXAMINATION OF THE GARRICKCOLLECTION OF OLD PLAYS IN THE

BRITISH LIBRARY

DOROTHY ANDERSON

I N April 1980 it will be two hundred years since David Garrick's Collection of Old Playswas transferred from his house in the Adelphi to the British Museum. On a hand cart, so itis said, the volumes in their special binding, with the initials DG entwined on the spines,were carried, with an escort of two Museum Trustees and the Keeper, the ReverendSamuel Harper, in attendance. From the special bookcase in which it had been housed,where Garrick had preserved its integrity for some thirty years, the Collection passed as abequest to the nation into the care of the Trustees and stafTof the British Museum.

At that time, in 1780, some of the items which made up the contents of the boundvolumes were already old, editions of plays and early romances printed in 1510, 1547, 1565.. ., already with a life span of more than two hundred years. Indeed, all except a handfulwere at least eighty years old, and the rest were much older, the products of the printers,booksellers, publishers of the previous two centuries, and had passed through the hands ofvarious owners before reaching the relative security of those of David Garrick. Theevidence of their earlier history, of previous owners and readers, is apparent in the booksthemselves: the marks of owners, signatures, scribbles, mysterious symbols, and prices;and of users; corrected letters, inserted notes, exclamatory crosses, and marginal marking.Some, in the course of their early life, had also suffered physical wear and tear, torn title-pages, missing leaves. Then, while in Garrick's hands, many had suffered furthermutilation, trimmed and cut in the process of fitting into the binding scheme which hadbeen designed especially for Garrick. There had also been a steady and informed use, forGarrick had been generous in allowing his friends, particularly those with literary andediting ambitions, to read and borrow the volumes. By 1780 the Collection had servedmany scholars searching into the history of early English drama, had been a source for theexamination of early texts, the awareness of different wording, the identification of varianteditions by the old playwrights.^

Since 1780 the Collection has continued to serve as source material for a wider public,for all researching into the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and, as

well, has contributed much to that complementary and more recently acknowledged fieldol scientific research, bibliography. The Garrick plays were basic to the long work ofW. W. Greg in preparing his Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration(London, ig^g ), in examining each copy of a play in order to identify its past printingand publishing history and hence add to literary chronology through the minutiae oftextual and printing changes. But Greg and his meticulous standards of scholarship, hisscrupulous attention to detail, painstaking care in identifying exactly the substitute leaf,the misplaced signature, the cancelled title-page, was the librarian/scholar/j^r excellence ofthe early twentieth century—perhaps the golden age of librarianship and bibliographywhen there was time as well as understanding, scientific knowledge, and skill.Librarianship since 1780 had matured to become a profession of service and responsibility,and bibliography had become its more rarificd and prestigious branch.

In between there had been the bleak years, when librarians, as they carried out theirbasic tasks of looking after books and readers, were at the same time establishing standardsin performance and practice, in attitudes and responsibilities: in short, the criteria of aprofession. In this respect, looking back and considering the history of the GarrickCollection over the past two centuries, it is possible to reflect how in librarianship attitudeshave changed, the sense of responsibility has developed, the standards of service risen.This has followed naturally because, in piecing together the history of the Collection, eachitem has been described not in terms of its place in literary history but rather as an item ofpossession, similar to a rare piece of silver, an antique chair or table, to be used, but caredfor and preserved. Hence it seems feasible—and is certainly entertaining—to make use ofthe details of what happened to one special collection to ponder on the why and the how ina wider context, and to make observations of a general —but hopefully valid—nature onlibrarians and librarinnship. Three incidents in the post-1780 history of the GarrickCollection have been chosen as examples of the changing ethics and practices oflibrarianship, and are recounted here.

\\ ithin a few years of its arrival in the British Museum the Garrick Collection sufferedmutilation and reduction, and this seems all the more surprising considering the leisurelypjcc of life in the Museum. An alphabetical catalogue of books was in preparation, andwhile this was being done it was discovered that there was 'a considerable number ofduplicate books which could be disposed of. The Trustees had already established by Actof Parliament that Museum duplicates could be sold and the proceeds used to buy newmaterial for the Museum collections. As the volumes of the Garrick Collection werechecked, duplicate titles were noted, the bound volumes were broken up, and theduplicates removed, to go with others into the sale. It is true that in making the choice ofduplicates the Keepers aimed to keep the better copies and put into the sale only those thatwere not only duplicates hut also grubby or torn. In this respect the Garrick copies,because of their varied history, were not always the cleanest or the most perfect. On theother hand, they were items in a notable gift to the Museum and were in bound volumes.Yet Garrick copies appear to have been sold: the evidence can be seen in the pages of the1788 Auction Catalogue of the Duplicate Books . . . of the British Museum, where in the

sequences that run from lots 903 to 940 and lots 1104 to 1133 forty-two titles can beidentified as Garrick copies. It is unfortunate also that the Keepers appear to haveaccepted duplicate titles as their guide and made no examination of the actual copies, someof which were not true duplicates. Because of this inadequate examination—or failure toappreciate differences of editions—a number of copies of rare editions were sold, such astwo of the three Garrick copies of Chapman and Marston, Eastward Ho (London, 1605),although all three were different. The Garrick volumes were rebound, and it seems likelyconsidering the small sums which were received for the duplicates—6(/, i/-, 3/6-~thatrebinding may have cost more than the proceeds of the copies sold. The incident as a wholeseems to point to the bibliographical inadequacy of the staff and a casualness on the part ofthe Trustees in maltreating a bequest.

Twenty years later those same rebound volumes in the Garrick Collection were tornapart again, this time for the insertion of replacement copies from other parts of the libraryand another collection. Again this seems an extraordinary policy decision to have beenmade, that volumes in one collection which was a gift should be broken apart in order thatcopies could be removed and replaced in the volumes of another gift collection. But theTrustees felt they had sound reasoning for their general decision to permit 'transfers'. Atthis time each room of the library was devoted to particular topics, and it was thoughtnecessary to tidy up this arrangement—as the whole book stock was growing so rapidly—in order to ensure that all the books on the same subjects were housed together. In theThomason Collection of Civil War Tracts were a number of plays, and it seemed a sensibledecision to transfer the plays from the Thomason volumes into the gaps in the Garrickvolumes. The Reverend William Beloe, then Keeper, supervised this programme during abrief period in 1805-6 (prior to his dismissal from the Museum), and the details of thephysical transfers were the responsibility of the young Henry Ellis (later to becomePrincipal Librarian). Ellis made neat and explicit notes on the flyleaves of the Thomasonvolumes, so that this small drastic piece of Museum history is well recorded. It would alsoseem from the tone of his notes that Ellis was not altogether happy with the procedure(fig. i). At the same time plays from other parts of the library, such as the SloaneCollection, were also transferred to the Garrick Collection, all part of a policy of tidying upthe library in respect of its rooms and subjects. It is not known whether Beloe had time toextend this procedure of transfers to other collections and other subjects: it would beworth while investigating.

For the next thirty and more years the Garrick volumes remained intact, the onlyproblems being practical ones, the difficulties for the increasing number of readers in usingthe volumes with their varied contents and lack of recognizable order. It therefore seemedreasonable and practical, as Panizzi suggested in 1840, to break up the volumes and bindeach play separately. It is odd to note at this stage that Ellis, now Sir Henry, could notsupport such a proposal, believing that to do so would be 'a sort of defacing' of a legacy.However, the persuasive arguments of Panizzi, indicating the difficulties in using thebound volumes and how they were suffering in consequence, prevailed, and his bindingprogramme was carried out.

m '

-i

/.-.•/ Dcilaralinu of. . . ihc Lord General Fairfax (Oxford, 1649) [and other pamphlets from theThomason C.oliection]. H. Kllis's manuscript note on the end-paper. E.556

At the same time this seemed an appropriate moment for the Museum to examine eachplay and consider whether it could be improved: that is, for those that were mutilated andimperfect, be made whole. Again Panizzi had a cogent argument to put to the Trustees: abook which had a whole text was more useful to the reader than one lacking title-page orlast leaf, etc. He suggested ways in which perfect copies might be achieved, making use ofother copies to produce facsimile pages, or adding leaves from odd copies boughtespecially for the purpose. The permission of the Trustees was given and in the course ofthe next twenty years a number of plays in the Garrick Collection were made perfect. It isobvious that this could never be a large-scale programme, or a straightforward one, or onethat could be carried out immediately, dependent as it was on finding other copies whichcould be utilized. About twenty of the Garrick copies were thus improved, some by theaddition of facsimile leaves (with the initials of John Harris, who carried out thefacsimiles). Three other styles of perfecting can also be traced, and it would seem inexamining these as though it became a kind of game within the library, starting with the

Fig. 2. J. Shirley, The Gentleman of Venice (London, 1655). Bound by C. Tuekett in gold-tooledstraight-grain moroeco with Garrick's arms in the centre. C.34.e.4

simple addition ofu leaf and going on to involved processes of exchanging leaves. Amongthe Giirrick plays there are some with title-page or last leaf added; others, morecomplicated, show the formation of a collection by bringing together two plays with theaddition of a new collective title-page; in one case there has been the exchange of torn andless torn leaves between two Garrick copies, making one more perfect and the other moreimperfect. Thereafter the process appears to have become more tortuous, with the transferof leaves from Garrick copies to plays in the King's Library, and of leaves fromunidentified copies to the Garrick plays. Indeed, one is left with the impression that therewas a scale of priorities within the Museum in relation to the collections, on which theKing's Library came first. On the other hand, it is rewarding to note that there was a muchmore scrupulous approach in carrying out the whole of this programme than there hadbeen in the earlier transfers, and it is possible to identify the leaves which were addedbecause these leaves were all carefully stamped and dated. Bibliographic standards inconsidering the book as an identity had risen considerably since the earlier part of thecentury.

There were to be further mutilations to the Garrick plays, a disfigurement and abuse,which was probably made easier because each was now bound as a separate item. In thisinstance, however, responsibility rested not with the Museum and its staff (except in so faras they might be criticized for lack of careful supervision), but with that distinguished andrevered bibliographer, Thomas J. Wise. Some of the Garrick copies still show gaps andstubs where he tore out five, ten, and even fifteen leaves from the small volumes. This talehas already been recorded in detail by David Foxon in Thomas J. Wise and the Pre-Restoration Drama (London, 1959).

Now, moving towards the end of this century, the plays of the Garrick Collection arelooking a little grubbier and more gre>, and more than a little worn in their red and yellowbindings of which Panizzi was so proud. In spite of the now-accepted high standards ofresponsihilit\ and service c\en, it could be said, because of over-scrupulous zeal inattending to the requests of readers -one more sin has been committed which iscontributing towards reducing the life span of these volumes: too frequent handling andmishandling at the copying machines.- Perhaps it would be worth while to evaluate oncemore the priorities of the library profession in the context of a national heritage: asguardians, as scholars, as providers of a service. These attributes were lacking twocenturies ago. Now there is appreciation and care: but should there also be thought for theneeds of scholars two centuries in the future ?

I The author has been working wiih Professor G. S, 2 The destructive habit of Xeroxing these plays hasRahrl on a detailed catalogue ot the Garrick been stopped.Collection with an historical introduction, to bepublished by tbe British Library.