Thread Name: Valid to use ML back-of-book catalogs as a way of dating books? From: Scot Kamins <kamins@removed> Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 08:38:13 -0700 I've been using the catalogs that appear in the back of many ML books to tell the date of printing of that particular book. I compare what's in the catalog to what ISN'T in the catalog to find the most recent title in the series at the time the book was bound; then I find the date of first printing of that most-recent-title and assume that the book I have in my hand was printed in that same season. My question is: is this a valid method of dating a book's printing? To be valid, the catalog pages would have to be up to date when they were printed, and that they were bound into books right away (as opposed to laying around in the bindary waiting for books to stick them into). ------------------------------------- From: "Gordon Neavill" <aa3401@removed> Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 13:40:00 -0400 Back-of-the book catalogs are nearly always a reliable way of dating ML books. They were never printed separately and bound in--a practice that would have led to catalogs in books having been printed earlier than the books themselves. They were printed with the text and were an integral part of the printed book. They didn't appear in all ML titles--only those where there were enough pages left over in the last gathering to accommodate a catalog. The ML kept the catalogs up to date; there was one season during the war when they messed up and used the previous season's catalogs, but otherwise the catalogs--from 1925 to 1967 at least--are pretty reliable. The exceptions were books printed with offset plates, which were rare before the mid-1960s. Later printings of these titles generally retained first edition statements and didn't update catalogs (if they were present). A good example is THE THURBER CARNIVAL. There's no catalog at the end, but every printing I've ever seen includes the statement, "First Modern Library Printing, 1957". The only way of identifying a first printing of this title is from the jacket which states "379 OUSTANDING BOOKS" at the head of the ML list inside the jacket. -------------------------------------