Victorian societies for text publication

Victorian societies for text publication were learned societies, in the United Kingdom for the nineteenth century, existing principally or having as a main function to produce scholarly editions of old works of historical or literary interest. At the time they were often called “book clubs”.

The Society of Antiquaries of London dates from 1707, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from 1780. The Roxburghe Club was founded in 1812 by a group of bibliophiles, each of which undertook to sponsor a publication, The Bannatyne Club was set up to print works of interest for Scottish tradition, literature and history, by Sir Walter Scott, a Roxburghe Club member. It was the precursor to quite a numerous population of similar specialized groups. Some of those were:

*Surtees Society (founded 1834) [ [http://www.dur.ac.uk/surtees.society/History1.htm] , claims to be the first of its kind.]
*Camden Society publishing from 1838, merged with the Royal Historical Society which took over its Camden Series
*English Historical Society (1838), chronicles
*Percy Society (1840)
*Shakespeare Society (1841)
*Chetham Society [ [http://www.chethams.org.uk/Chetham_Society_Publications.htm The Chetham Society: List of Publications ] ]
*Ælfric Society
*Caxton Society
*Early English Text Society (1864)
*Chaucer Society (1868) [ [http://library.truman.edu/microforms/chaucer_society.htm Chaucer Society ] ]
*Ballad Society (1868) ["Victorian Songhunters: The Recovery And Editing of English Vernacular Ballads And Folk Lyrics, 1820-1883" (2006), E. David Gregory ISBN/SKU 0810857030.]
*New Shakspere Society (1874) [ [http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/infosrv/MicroCollections/newshake.htm Research Collections in Microform: New Shakspere Society Publications - Bowling Green State University ] ]
*Wyclif Society (1882) [ [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wyclif/ John Wyclif (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) ] ]
*Pali Text Society
*Pipe Roll Society, founded 1883 by the Public Record Office
*Saint Paul's Ecclesiological Society, an offshoot of the Cambridge Camden Society
*Henry Bradshaw Society for the Editing of Rare Liturgical Texts (founded 1890)
*Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society

These societies often suffered from financial and organizational troubles. Publication often was funded by subscription, meaning that success was dependent on fund-raising. From the 1850s the official Rolls Series occupied some of the territory of these amateur ventures.

Controversy followed Frederick James Furnivall, a prime mover in many of these ventures. He was involved too in the Philological Society, not strictly a publisher of old texts, but the seed-bed for the New English Dictionary.

ee also

* Revue de l'Orient Latin, French collection of medieval documents
* Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes
* Bibliothéque des Ecoles francaises d'Athênes et de Rome

Notes