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| Wing bibliography | |
|---|---|
| Name | Wing bibliography |
| Subject | Bibliography of 17th-century English books |
| Creator | Pollard and Redgrave (sometimes referenced) |
| Period | 1641–1700 |
| Language | English |
| Format | Index of printed works |
Wing bibliography is the standard bibliographic reference for books printed in the English language during the later seventeenth century, compiled to record imprints, variants, and editions. It functions as a cornerstone for studies of early modern print culture, book history, and bibliography, used by librarians, curators, and scholars working on seventeenth-century authors, printers, and publishers. The compilation is routinely cross-referenced with other major bibliographies, catalogues, and library collections.
The work catalogs imprints attributed to the period often defined between 1641 and 1700 and enumerates variant states, formats, and imprint particulars. Researchers consult it alongside resources such as the English Short Title Catalogue, the Stationers' Register, the Bodleian Library holdings, and collections at the British Library and the Library of Congress. It is cited in scholarship on figures like John Milton, John Bunyan, Samuel Pepys, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton and on printers such as William Caxton in historiographical comparisons.
The compilation received its most authoritative form through the work of bibliographers in the twentieth century who sought to supersede earlier catalogues like those by Pollard and Redgrave and to complement national catalogues such as the Short-Title Catalogue (STC) and the Nineteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue. Its editorial history involves institutions including the Bodleian Library, the British Museum, and university presses at Oxford and Cambridge. Scholars such as A. W. Pollard and librarians associated with the Bodleian and the British Library shaped methodologies that tied imprint evidence to provenance records, auction catalogues, and private collections such as those of Henry E. Huntington.
Entries are organized by author when known, by anonymous or anonymous imprints when not, and by subject areas reflecting contemporary seventeenth-century categories: theology, law, natural philosophy, drama, poetry, and pamphleteering. The bibliography interfaces with subject-specialist catalogues for figures like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Browne, Ben Jonson, and John Donne and with legal series such as reports involving Sir Edward Coke and parliamentary materials from the Long Parliament and the Convention Parliament. It also captures ephemeral materials tied to events like the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, and the Restoration.
The index includes canonical authors whose early editions are central to textual criticism: John Milton’s polemical pamphlets, John Bunyan’s sermons and doxographies, Samuel Pepys’s diaries in their fragmentary states, and scientific treatises by Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. Dramatic and poetic printings by William Shakespeare (through folio and quarto cross-references), Ben Jonson, and Edmund Spenser are recorded where seventeenth-century imprints survive. Political tracts linked to figures such as Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Fairfax, John Pym, and Charles II appear alongside legal and ecclesiastical publications tied to William Laud and Richard Baxter.
Compilation relied on collation of physical copies in repositories like the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Cambridge University Library, the John Rylands Library, and the Huntington Library, and on sale catalogues from houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's. Paleographic inspection of title-pages, imposition analysis, watermarks traced to paper mills in Holland and France, and printer’s ornaments tied to workshops in London and provincial towns inform attribution. Cross-referencing with the Stationers' Company records, parish registers, university matriculation lists from Oxford University and Cambridge University, and estate inventories supports authorial and imprint identification.
Scholars in book history, textual criticism, and bibliography frequently cite the compilation in editions and monographs addressing authors such as John Milton, John Bunyan, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and editors of drama editions involving William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Libraries and cataloguers at institutions including the British Library, the Library of Congress, and the Bodleian Library use it to authenticate holdings and resolve copy-specific variant readings. Reception history connects it to bibliographical projects like the English Short Title Catalogue, the Short-Title Catalogue, and digital initiatives hosted by university libraries and national archives.
Digital surrogates and databases link the printed entries to electronic catalogues maintained by the British Library, the Library of Congress, the Bodleian Library, and the National Library of Scotland. Projects at Oxford and Cambridge have provided searchable metadata and TEI-encoded records that integrate with the ESTC and the English Short Title Catalogue. Ongoing digitization efforts intersect with archives of auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's and with scholarly infrastructures supported by research councils and foundations like the Leverhulme Trust and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Category:Bibliographies