February 17, 2006

Dear Fellow Members,

It is time once again to inform you of the details or our next annual meeting. It will take place on Friday, March 24, 2006, at 4:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library. Following a brief business meeting, we will hold another in our series of programs featuring short papers by current Virginia graduate students who are working in the general area of bibliographical and textual studies. The program will consist of the following four papers:

• Francis X. Connor, "Manuscript, Print, and Coterie Authorship in the Poetry of Katherine Philips"
• Ania Wieckowski, "Accidentals in Dickens's Dombey and Son"
• Peter J. Capuano, "The First Serialized Number of Thackeray's Vanity Fair"
• Wesley Raabe, "Uncle Tom's Cabin as Newspaper Serial"

In the business part of the meeting, preceding the talks, the prizes in the Society's biennial student book-collecting contest will be awarded. This year's contest, soon to be concluded, is the forty-sixth that the Society has sponsored. Besides cash prizes and gift certificates from local booksellers, winners will receive graduation honors. The first-place winner will also receive the BSUVa Fellowship for Rare Book School, providing a tuition-free opportunity to take one of RBS's renowned courses. And for the first time this year, the first-place winner will be eligible to participate in a national contest the Fine Books & Collections Collegiate Book-Collecting Championship. In addition, all contestants will be invited to attend a talk on book collecting by Kathryn Morgan, head of Collections Services in the Small Special Collections Library. Selections from the winning collections will be on display in Memorial Hall of Alderman Library during the Virginia Festival of the Book (of which our meeting is a part). I wish to express the Society's gratitude to Ruthe Battestin for chairing the contest committee and overseeing all the details that the contest involves; to Kathryn Morgan and Fred Ribble, the other two contest judges; to Kathryn again for her willingness to give a talk to the contestants; and to Terry Belanger for his generosity in contributing the contest poster and the Rare Book School Fellowship.

Also in the business part of the meeting, we shall vote on the re-election of David Vander Meulen to the Council, for a term ending in 2013. David, as you know, is a professor in the English Department at UVa and the editor of our journal, Studies in Bibliography, and all our other publications. The high standards that he sets for these publications are recognized throughout the international scholarly world. And as the Society's vice-president he gives generously of his time to handle many other matters that come up. His continued presence on the Council is essential to the well-being of the Society.

In reviewing the events of the past year, I must begin with the sad news of Mary Massey's death, which severs our last direct link with the earliest days of the Society. Her husband, the great Faulkner collector Linton Massey, was instrumental in the Society's founding in 1947; during the twenty-six years of his presidency, he supported the Society generously, not only in monetary terms but also in the amount of time he devoted to the Society's affairs. His wife, a collector of botanical books, was equally interested in the Society's work and in its welfare; and after her husband's death in 1974 she became a member of the Council, serving until 1992, when she was made an Honorary Councilor. She is also remembered fondly as the gracious hostess of the dinners that followed Council meetings, which were held at Kinloch, the Massey estate, from the beginning through 1989. More than sixty of these celebrated dinners took place, and Fredson Bowers once said that the menus "deserve publication as a bibliography of dining." Members of the Society who attended Mary Massey's funeral on January 14 were gratified to hear Carolyn M. Dillard (daughter of Bernice E. Mitchell, who worked for the Masseys for sixty-two years) mention the Society's dinners as symbolic events that illustrate the rhythm of life at Kinloch. The Society mourns the passing of its loyal friend Mary Massey and extends condolences to her family.

Turning to happier news, I am glad to report that the Society published two books during the past year. One was Gordon N. Ray's The Art Deco Book in France, originally published in Studies in Bibliography and now made available separately with three added indexes; the other was a collection of six of my essays entitled Textual Criticism since Greg: A Chronicle, 1950-2000. Volume 56 of Studies in Bibliography is in press; when it appears I am sure it will be hailed as one of the most exciting of the whole series. It will include, among other articles, a brilliant treatment of the role of judgment in scholarly editing, two essays on book history that will be regarded as basic, a pioneering piece on the bibliographical description of music part-books, and a historical account of dust jackets. We are profoundly indebted to David Vander Meulen, our editor, and to Elizabeth Lynch, his assistant, for all their devoted work in bringing these volumes to fruition so splendidly. They also supervise the electronic publications available on the Society's website, at Bibliographical Society home page. We are grateful to David Seaman for his wise counsel on electronic matters, which has allowed us to have such a flourishing electronic publishing program.

Each new volume of Studies is distributed by the University of Virginia Press, and the Society's Secretary-Treasurer has a limited supply of most earlier volumes. All the Society's other publications in print (including the two newly published books mentioned above) are available from Oak Knoll Books. Let me remind you that members of the Society who identify themselves will be given a 10% discount. If you don't receive Oak Knoll catalogues and would like to, just write to 310 Delaware Street, New Castle, Delaware 19720; or phone 302-328-7232 or 1-800-996-2556; or fax 302-328-7274; or email oakknoll@oakknoll.com. Oak Knoll's complete catalogue can also be browsed at Oak Knoll publishing.

I've already mentioned several members of the Council, but now I want to thank them all as a group for their loyal service to the Society: Ruthe Battestin, Terry Belanger, Kathryn Morgan, David Seaman, David Vander Meulen, and Karin Wittenborg. I also want to give special thanks to our Secretary-Treasurer, Anne Ribble, who with unfailing good humor and efficiency handles all the day-to-day business (expected and unexpected) that comes before the Society. Her willingness to serve us in this way is one of the greatest pieces of good fortune that the Society has had.

Since the Society, like all scholarly organizations at present, needs more membership support, I hope all of you will publicize the Society and the importance of its work, especially its active publication program, both in printed and in electronic form. And when membership-renewal time comes, I hope you will consider increasing the level of your membership. On behalf of the Council, I thank all of you for your support. I look forward to seeing many of you at the annual meeting, and I send best wishes to you all.