20
STEVEN MARCUS
examined."
And he follows this rule invariably throughout the first
two volumes. Volume
III
contains an unimportant but interesting
exception. At one point in his "Preliminary Remarks," Ashbee prints
a footnote, three pages in length, which consists of a bare alphabetical
listing of the titles of certain works of English fiction. He introduces
the footnote with this explanation: "The books, all I believe, exist,
or have existed, and most of them have passed through my hands at
one time or another; as however they are not all before me now, I
do not guarantee the titles given to be invariably correct." Several
pages further on, Ashbee turns to acknowledge his indebtedness to a
number of friends and associates, now dead, who helped him in the
work on all three volumes. Among these was one James Campbell,
bibliophile, book-collector, and writer of pornography, whose scholar–
ship or expertise Ashbee implies to have been the equal of his own.
Campbell, unlike Ashbee, was not a wealthy man and could not af–
ford to publish his own work. Shortly before his death, however, he
presented Ashbee with three manuscript volumes of "Bibliographical
Notes," and Ashbee states that he "found them of great service" in
preparing the final volume. It is possible, therefore, that that long
footnote-listing along with several other minor entries in the
Catena
are at least in part Campbell's work, which Ashbee had every reason
to trust. We can, on the other hand, take this small and not fully
substantiated exception as an additional indicator of Ashbee's unique
integrity in a world of thieves, brigands, frauds, and liars.
As a final note on method, Ashbee raises the unavoidable ques–
tion for an undertaking such as his of the bibliographer's tact and
modesty. "In treating of obscene books," he writes, "it is self evident
that obscenities cannot be avoided. Nevertheless, although I do not
hesitate to call things by their right names, and to employ technical
terms when necessary, yet in my own text I never use an impure
word when one less distasteful but equally expressive can be found."
This statement
is,
as far as it goes, a model of straightforwardness;
whether it in fact answers the question raised is a matter into which
we shall have further occasion to inquire.
II
The various introductions and preliminary remarks to Ashbee's
three volumes amount to almost two hundred pages, a small book
in itself. In the course of these essays Ashbee expresses himself on a
