The OED Bibliography Group: the workers behind the quotation paragraphs

The Bibliography Group of the OED consists of four full-time members of staff at present, and just under 20 freelancers who carry out essential out-of-house research chiefly in Oxford, London, and Washington.

The role of the Bibliography Group is to ensure that quotations adduced as evidence in OED entries are taken from the most appropriate sources, and cited accurately and according to the Dictionary's house style; and to fulfil the lexicographers' needs for information relating to quotations which cannot be met within the department.

The bibliographers' days tend to be earnest, fairly solitary, absorbed in minutiae hardly a raconteur's goldmine. But it's worth dwelling on one of the main features of the bibliographical or research life, which is sometimes referred to as the 'tip-of-the-iceberg' syndrome, or, more briefly, the 'can of worms' scenario (C.o.W.).

The C.o.W. is typically initiated by a simple request, thus: the OED has quoted from A Treatise on the History of Guernsey, citing the author as either Warburton or (mostly) J. Warburton. An editor drew the discrepancy to our attention, asking for the initial-less citations to be completed. Working to the bibliographer's motto numquam confide, semper confirma our group member looked up the work in the British Library catalogue, where it is attributed to John Warburton, Somerset Herald. However, the Bodleian's catalogue entry records the author as 'Mr. Warburton' – the title page form – with no additional note as to his identity. Further investigation in the invaluable Dictionary of National Biography revealed that John Warburton, who was the official Somerset Herald in the early 18^th century, would have been at most a year old when the book was stated to have been written. The Bibliography Group decided to remove the initial from what had hitherto appeared to be the more complete and accurate citations, recognizing that 'J. Warburton' would be a misattribution.

With the aid of the bibliographer's motto and innate native suspicion, the bibliographer is unlikely to succumb to the trap into which the less wary fell some years ago: H. J. Massingham's 1935 work really is called Wold without End, and the desire to 'correct' this to World without End must be resisted. Sometimes, though, it is only a sort of sixth sense which uncovers a potential bibliographical gaffe in an OED entry:

One of the group encountered a citation late last year which ran:

1650 Artist's Rendition Edinb. Castle

This triggered that 'Here be wormes' reaction which the seasoned bibliographer learns to respect. Investigation revealed that the citation appeared in OED Second Edition in the form:

1650 Art. Rendition Edinb. Castle

which in turn made our bibliographer wonder whether the strong association between the starting syllables 'art...' and 'rend...' had overcome caution at some stage between the OED Second Edition and the present. And so it proved: the full title of the post-civil war text being quoted from was in fact The Articles of the Rendition of Edenburgh-Castle to the Lord Generall Cromwel, now cited in the OED Online as

1650 Articles Rendition Edenb.-Castle

Another classic C.o.W. which presented itself recently was a simple request for the date of death of the playwright John Ford – needed in the citation of a posthumously published work of his. What could be easier? A quick look in a library catalogue, Dictionary of National Biography, the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: any one of these would presumably furnish the answer. But numquam confide, semper confirma – and the bibliographer was immediately plunged into the complex and sparsely-documented world of early modern English drama. Here, the authorship of individual plays is often uncertain, and the identity of one particular John Ford hard to pin down.

Our own files suggested that there had been a change of heart from 1639 to 'after 1639'; the Oxford Companions veered from 'fl. 1639' to giving the date of death 'after 1639'; other sources settle for 'c1640' or '1640?'; while the latest academic opinion seems to offer 'between 1639 and 1656' as the nearest we can get to the fact. The bibliographer emerges from all this with a heartfelt wish that the play in question had turned out to be attributed to John Marston after all (d. 1634 –no doubt about that).

It has been very satisfying dealing with these recently raised bibliographical issues: untangling the worms in the can, tracking down the truth, and presenting it accurately and precisely in the Dictionary entry. Given the number of quotations in the OED, however (over 2.5 million and rising each week), I should like to suggest a toast for OED bibliographers and researchers: May the worm-cans be few, and the tin-opener sharp.