ABSTRACT
Every catalogue-entry is a description of the book catalogued; but according to the purpose of the catalogue is the degree of elaboration of the description. The minimum catalogue entry would be represented by Tasso: Aminta, which would at least tell the reader the author and the title of the book, and if he had heard of both before would be of some small use, were he indifferent to matters of text and annotation. The analysis of the contents shows the pages occupied by every part of the book, preliminaries and blank leaves and pages included. The cataloguing of incunabula has now a technique of its own, that serving the so-called “natural history method of bibliography” founded by Henry Bradshaw. Incunabula, which are the products of the yet un-standardized printing-press, need to be studied typographically: and for special purposes later books may be so studied.
