The Robert Graves Standard Bibliography: the Higginson Classification
The Higginson Bibliography is the standard for reference to the works of
Robert Graves. The Higginson numbers are bibliographic in nature: the
element of classification in the system is minimal.
Originally the classification was fivefold. Thus:
-
- Section A (1st edn, 1966) represented books and pamphlets
written by Graves, plus "those written in collaboration with
others, works edited, largely rewritten or translated by him, and
published collections of his writing edited by others....A large
proportion of the material included in Section A falls into one
or more of these categories:
- 1. Collaborations: the books written with Laura Riding, Alan Hodge,
Joshua Podro and Raphael Patai.
- 2. 'Editions': the Skelton and nursery rhyme collections, both editions
of the ballad books and the edition of letters from T.E. Lawrence.
- 3. Rewritings: The Real David Copperfield ,
the two books of Frank Richards and the Echard translation of
Terence.
- 4. Translations: Apuleius, Galvan, Alarcon, Sand, Lucan, Suetonius,
Hesiod, Homer, Omar Khayaam and (with Laura Riding) Schwarz"
- Section B consists of books and pamphlets containing contributions by
Graves.
- Section C consists of contributions to the press and periodicals,
including a few translations
- Section D deals with manuscript collections, gramophone records,
music, ephemera, etc.
- Section E is a "highly selective bibliography of works about
Graves"
In the second edition of the Higginson bibliography updated by W.P.
Williams and published in 1987, sections D and E have become appendices,
so that the scheme is as follows:
- Section A: Books and pamphlets by Robert Graves, alone or in collaboration,
and works edited, translated or rewritten by him.
- Section B consists of books and pamphlets containing contributions
by Graves.
- Section C consists of contributions to the press and periodicals, including
a few translations
- Appendix I: translations of selections of Graves' work.
- Appendix II: Collections of manuscripts and printed books.
- Addenda and miscellanea (the ephemera section from the first bibliography
is not reproduced, for example)*[1]
The first three sections of each version of the bibliography are
formatted as follows:
- Section letter [number, representing chronological sequence]
The Williams modification of this scheme is twofold:
- 1. Publications within the sequence discovered subsequent to the original
Higginson bibliography are fitted in between sequence numbers by
means of a decimal point and a subsequence number. Thus a work
discovered to have been published between A29 and A30 would be
notated as A29.1.
- 2. The publishing history of a work is indicated by the addition of
letter suffixes. Thus the publishing history of A29 is indicated as
follows: A29a, A29b, A29c, and so on. The publication history of
A29.1 would be indicated as A29.1a, b, etc.
The principle advantage of the Higginson numbers is that they establish
the precise chronological sequence of publication.
The Higginson bibliography is not an attempt to bring together descriptions
of all Gravesiana; the second edition is even more strict than the first
in its traditional approach to bibliography. Non-printed matter is
excluded on that basis, and we have to look elsewhere to find this
material.
Letters do not fall within the scope of the Higginson bibliography.
An augmented form of the earlier 1966 bibliographic scheme would allow
the possibility of greater consistency in accomodating manuscripts,
letters and other materials.
[1] From the Introduction to A Bibliography of
the Writings of Robert Graves:, Higginson/Williams, 1987, pp1-2.
This document prepared 3rd April 1996.
Page updated 28 Sept 1998
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