Women of Letters
s111,—Miss Grylls' complaint is justified. There is as much justifica- tion for indexing Mary Wollstonecraft at Imlay as at Godwin; but to deplore the injustice as a librarian's habit is unfair. She should first castigate the editors of the Dictionary of National Biography, the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, the Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature—and many more.
American and British librarians conferred for several years at the beginning of this century on debatable points of cataloguing, and published their findings in 1908 in a 174-rule code. But they could not agree on every point, and British librarians insisted on the cata- loguing of a married woman "under the earliest name which she has used as an author." This means, of course, that the recent Beatrice Webb diaries should be entered at "Potter." The Americans thought other- wise, and suggested that a woman's latest name be used, unless she had consistently written under an earlier one. With this qualification we are spared the mockery of looking for the author of Jane Eyre at 'Nicholls." But so many women writers have not been consistent, and rules with qualifications become a prey to personal opinions.
Librarians, in their work at least, are not thanked for being creative or opinionated; their catalogues should conform to general practice, and follow the habits of scholars, so that many a rule is not obeyed, in deference to this tradition. Miss Grylls need not lay down her torch; but she might brandish it outside the library first.—Yours faithfully, G. R. DAVIES. Central Library, Guildhall, Cambridge.
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