Bibliographies

Several very earnest and impressive efforts have been made to prepare a complete bibliography of Masonic books and, though the principal, and perhaps all of the worthwhile works have been listed in one or another of such bibliographies, it is to be doubted whether any one of them has been complete, partly because there is no sharp line between what is and what is not Masonic and partly because there are an immense number of small or local publications, some of which would surely escape or, even if found, might be considered unimportant. Many so called Masonic books are Masonic only in the judgment of their authors. One of the first attempts to list Masonic publications was that of Claude Antoine Thory in Volume I of Acta Latomorum (Paris, 1815). This he called Bibliography of the Works, Booklets, Circulars, or more remarkable writings, published on the History of Freemasonry since 1723 up to 1814. It is not complete even for the period named. Next came the Bibliography of Freemasons, (Frankfort, 1844) by Dr. Georg B. F. Kloss, containing about 5400 items, and being fairly complete. In 1886, Reinhold Taute published a Masonic Bibliography at Leipzig. In 1903, Frank J. Thompson of South Dakota published System of Card Membership Record for Masonic Bodies and a Scheme of Classification for Masonic Books. The greatest effort up to its time was August Wolfstieg's Bibliography of Freemasonic Literature, in three editions, 1911, 1912, and 1914, containing 43,347 items. This was brought down to 1926 by Bernhard Beyer of Bayreuth, Germany. A very useful handbook for everyday use is the Selected List of Masonic Literature, published in 1923 by Silas H. Shepherd and his Committee on Masonic Research of the Grand Lodge of Wisconsin, which also issued an Essay on Masonic History and Reference Works and, in 1920, a list of Masonic Bibliographies. In 1915, William L. Boyden, Librarian of the Supreme Council A. & A. S. R. for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, published at Washington, D. C., Classification of the Literature of Freemasonry, in which he adapted the Dewey decimal system to Masonic literature. This is used and briefly explained in Shepherd's Selected List of Masonic Literature above mentioned.