BIBLIOGRAPHY OF TEXAS

1795-1845 Part I. By Thomas W. Streeter '04. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955- 2vols. $20.00.

Students of Americana have been anxiously awaiting the appearance of this publication for many years. They had expected, and here find, a monument to the meticulous scholarship of Mr. Streeter, noted bibliophile, former president of the Bibliographical Society of America and of the American Antiquarian Society, and member of the boards of many friends of the library organizations.

This illustrated publication is beautifully printed at the Anthoensen Press in Portland, Maine, and is limited to 600 copies. Part I, in two volumes, treats Texas Imprints - books, broadsides, and maps - covering the period up to 1845 when Texas became a state. This will be followed by two other parts. In Part I are listed 673 titles with full bibliographical descriptions and locations of known copies. An appendix contains information about Texas newspapers up to 1845 and other pertinent material.

The earliest known Texas imprint was printed in 1817, but no copy has been found. The earliest surviving imprint was printed in 1823: a broadside, a letter of Stephen F. Austin to the settlers in Austin, the only known copy of which is owned by Mr. Streeter. In fact, there are many items of which the author has the only known copy.

This work is destined to become a bibliographical classic like the works of the man to whom the book is dedicated, Henry Raup Wagner, "the old master in whose footsteps I have tried to follow." It is a model for future bibliographers of state imprints. Only one other state bibliography lists as does Mr. Streeter the material about a given state together with the imprints of a covered period with descriptive matter. This is Miss Baer's Seventeenth Century Maryland.

The introduction tells how Mr. Streeter first went to Texas over forty years ago and soon after began collecting Texana. Twenty-seven years ago he conceived the idea of this bibliography. The introduction is followed by a short history of Texas printing through the year 1845.

To assist with the completion of this great task Mr. Streeter has employed various research scholars, who have examined Texas material in Mexico, in Texas, and in the larger United States libraries outside of Texas. His own collection is outstanding. Of the numbered entries in these two volumes, the University of Texas Library has 342 items, the largest collection in any library. Mr. Streeter owns 232 titles. The next largest collection is at the Texas State Library with 150 titles, and the Grand Lodge at Waco has 134. The Library of Congress has only 59 of the titles.

A publication of interest to Dartmouth men is a broadside in three columns, "To the Voters of the Senatorial District composed of the Counties of Milam and Robertson" (1841), signed by E.L.R. Wheelock, a grandson of the College's first President. He was born in Hanover March 31, 1793, was graduated from West Point, and settled in Texas in the 1830's, founding the town of Wheelock. He died May 14,1847.

There are 134 entries known from various references of which no copies have been located. It is hoped the publication of this bibliography may bring to light some of these.

Part II, to appear later, will describe Texana printed in what is now Mexico, and Part III, Texana printed in the United States and Europe, 1795-1845.