Collaboration, Technologies, and the History of Shakespearean Bibliography

This Element traces the history of Shakespearean bibliography from its earliest days to the present. With an emphasis on how we enumerate and find scholarship about Shakespeare, this Element argues that understanding bibliographies is foundational to how we research Shakespeare. From early modern catalogs of Shakespeare plays, to early bibliographers such as Albert Cohn (1827–1905) and William Jaggard (1868–1947), to present-day digital projects such as the online World Shakespeare Bibliography, this Element underscores how the taxonomic organization, ambit, and media of enumerative Shakespearean bibliography projects directly impact how scholars value and can use these resources. Ultimately, this Element asks us to rethink our assumptions about Shakespearean bibliography by foregrounding the labor, collaboration, technological innovations, and critical decisions that go into creating and sustaining bibliographies at all stages. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.