Related Journals

• Book-Lore
  • Becomes Book-Lore: A Magazine Devoted to Old-Time Literature (1884-1887)
• Bookworm (1887)
  • Becomes The Bookworm [Book-worm]: An Illustrated Treasury of Old-Time Literature [ed. Stock] (1887-1894)

Start Date(s)

• 1881 (Bigmore and Wyman)

End Date(s)

• 1884 (COPAC)

Editor(s)

• Wheatley, Henry Benjamin

Printer/Publisher(s)

• Elliot Stock

City

• London, England

Type of Content

• Includes book reviews, notes, news, correspondence, public libraries, articles on printers, newspapers, rare books, sales, bibliographies of special subjects, events (Catalogue 10)
• "Excellent book reviews; reporting on important book sales and the dispersal of unique libraries. Also considerable correspondence" (Faustus, Catalogue 52)
• The first number contains an article on an unknown printer, "Thomas Bercula," by Mr. W. Blades, and a notice of "John Baskerville," by Mr. R. B. Prosser, of H.M. Patent Office (Bigmore and Wyman 2:161)
• "Some of the contributions formed the basis for later work, notably with F. Madan's bibliography of writings by and on Henry Sacheverell, contributed to The Bibliographer, which was later expanded by his son, F. F. Madan" (Sherbo 208)
• Includes illustrations (Hoornstra and Puravs 7)

Notes

• Motto: "All ye who, in these latter days, / Love books of days gone by, / Come mount these stairs, shut out the world, / And from its troubles fly." (Title page, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 1881)
• "The three great objects of a journal such as this appear to be--firstly, the production of fresh information in a convenient and easily accessible form; secondly, the giving an account of what is passing in the biographical world; and thirdly, the formation of a medium of communication between those interested in old books." (Wheatley, H. B. "Preface," vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 1881, p. iii)
• "The earlier of the two journals here indexed, The Bibliographer, was edited by Mr. Henry B. Wheatley, with the object to offer, ‘firstly, the production of fresh information in a convenient and easily accessible form; secondly, the giving an account of what is passing in the bibliographical world; and thirdly, the formation of a medium of communication between those interested in old books.’ After three years it was discontinued, but as the editor states in his preface to the last volume, ‘it can scarcely be said to die, for from its ashes will rise a magazine more popular in its objects and scope’; this magazine was Booklore, which in its turn was discontinued after three years. The publisher of the two magazines, Mr. Elliot Stock, published from 1888 to 1894, inclusive, another journal of the same kind, called The Bookworm, An Illustrated Treasury of Old-Time Literature” (Josephson 1)
• "The Bibliographer kept its readers informed about what was happening in the world of bibliography. Information could be quickly and conveniently obtained concerning new projects, catalogs, methods, etc. The magazine also offered a medium of communication between people interested in old books" (Hoornstra and Puravs 7)
• Described as the "fore runner of both Book-Lore and The Book Worm and in a sense the worthier for it. A more scholarly journalist seems more involved with Bibliography" (Swift; Sacheverell)
• Many of the articles are attributed (Sherbo 207)

Subject Categories

• Bibliography
• Book Collecting
• Book Trade & Bookselling
• Printing History

Issues

• Bibliographer 1.1 (December 1881)
• Bibliographer 1.2 (January 1882)
• Bibliographer 1.3 (February 1882)
• Bibliographer 1.4 (March 1882)

Sources that Discuss this Journal

• Bigmore and Wyman vol. 2, p. 161
• COPAC
• Hoornstra and Puravs p. 7
• Josephson p. 1
• NSTC
• Sherbo pp. 207-19
• Stewart vol. 1, p. 331
• Tye p. 2

Works Cited

• Bigmore, E. C., and C. W. H. Wyman. A Bibliography of Printing. 1880. Oak Knoll P and the British Library, 2001.
• COPAC: Consortium of Online Public Access Catalogues. Library Hub Discover, JISC.
• Hoornstra, Jean, and Grace Puravs, editors. A Guide to the Early British Periodicals Collection on Microfilm, with Title, Subject, Editor, and Reel Number Indexes. University Microfilms International, 1980.
• Josephson, Aksel G. S. Index to Bibliographer and Book-Lore. Boston Book Co., 1904. HathiTrust.
• NSTC (Nineteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue), in C19: The Nineteenth-Century Index, Chadwyck-Heaney, 2020. ProQuest.
• Sherbo, Arthur. “‘The Bibliographer,’ ‘Book-Lore’, and ‘The Bookworm.’” Studies in Bibliography, vol. 40, 1987, pp. 207–19. JSTOR.
• Stewart, James D., editor. British Union-Catalogue of Periodicals. 4 vols. Butterworths, 1968.
• Tye, James Reginald. Periodicals of the Nineties: A Checklist of Literary Periodicals Published in the British Isles at Longer than Fortnightly Intervals, 1890-1899. Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1974.