However, it is clear that, despite the occasional specialist work, such as Dennis Butt’s
study of Mrs Hofland (Butts 1992) or M. Nancy Cutt’s on Mrs Sherwood (Cutt 1974),
there are vast tracts of the history of children’s literature untouched by bibliographers.
The same is true of illustration, although there are some excellent outlines of its
history, notably by Whalley and Chester with their A History of Children’s Book
Illustration (1988) (and also Muir, 1971/1985; Whalley 1974; Ray 1976; Martin 1989),
while The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators (Horne 1994) is a standard
work. There are useful volumes on American (Mahoney et al. 1947 et seq.), and
Australian art (Muir, 1982). There have also been individual bibliographical studies of
Thomas Bewick (Roscoe 1953), the Brocks (Kelly 1982) Heath Robinson (Lewis 1973),
William Nicholson (Campbell 1992) and many others.
The same principle, of excellent work in some areas and much that could be explored,
could be extended to other types and genres. Thus in folklore, Neil Philip’s exemplary
editing and work on sources and analogues in The Penguin Book of English Folktales
(1992) could well be extended. Similarly, book collectors have been served by Joseph
Connolly’s Modern First Editions: Their Value to Collectors (1988).
In 1966, Fredson Bowers wrote in his book Textual and Literary Criticism: ‘I could wish
that critics knew more, and knowing would care more, about the purity of the texts they
use’ (7). This is an even more unfashionable view now, among theorists, than it was
then. Bibliographers may well see their work as fundamental to the whole project of
children’s literature studies, in establishing the true history, and in establishing the true
texts—and it is a position difficult to argue with if one wants children’s literature to stand
beside other literatures. None the less, bibliographical studies often sit uneasily with the
other disciplines involved with children’s literature: on the one hand they seem to be
concerned with irrelevant minutiae; on the other to be linked to a particularly solipsistic
and monetarily oriented trade—book collecting. And if theory has not sufficiently taken
on board bibliographical concerns, then the reverse seems equally to be true.
However, it is clear that in academic, historical, and bibliographical terms there is an
immense amount of work to be done, in collecting, clarifying, and documenting the often
bewildering output of children’s literature. How successful the bibliographers are in this
endeavour may well provide an accurate barometer for the progress and status of
children’s literature studies as a whole.
ReferencesAlderson, B. (1977) Bibliography and Children’s Books: The Present Position, London: The
Bibliographical Society, reprinted from The Library 32, 3:203–213.
——(1982) Hans Christian Andersen and his ‘Eventyr’ in England, Wormley: Five Owls Press for
International Board on Books for Young People, British Section.
——(1989) The Ludford Box and ‘A Christmass Box’: their Contribution to Our Knowledge
of Eighteenth Century Children’s Literature, UCLA Occasional Papers 2, Los Angeles, UCLA.
——(1994) ‘Some notes on James Burns as a publisher of children’s books’, in Blamires, D. (ed.)
Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 76, 3:103–126.
——(1995) ‘A widish, widish world’, Children’s Books History Society Newsletter 51:17.
A NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY 125