POETICAL MISCELLANIES

In 1982-83, the Library purchased from a Princeton bookseller, John Brett-Smith, a collection of English poetical miscellanies published between 1625 and 1800. In its entirety, the collection consists of 86 titles in 71 volumes. These 86 join more than 200 other editions of English poetical miscellanies for the same period already in the Library. Although it is not known exactly when the Library began to gather miscellanies, impetus for collecting them came in 1935 when the first comprehensive bibliography of English poetical miscellanies was published. [See: Arthur E. Case, A Bibliography of English Poetical Miscellanies, 1521-1750 (Oxford: Printed for the Bibliographical Society at the University Press, 1935) [(ExB) Z2014 .P7C3]. The Princeton copy of Case shows intensive use by the Associate Librarian, Lawrence Heyl, as he began to search and purchase miscellanies for our growing collections. Mr. Heyl not only annotated entries for copies held by Princeton but also noted variations of Princeton copies with the published descriptions.