A NOTE ON OUR BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Cabell has been well-served by his bibliographers. The Silver Stallion’s corrected, updated, and illustrated Cabell bibliographies are heavily dependent on the work of their predecessors.

Historically, Mr. Cabell's bibliographers have used one of two schemes to organize his works. We have provided two different bibliographic indexes to provide the reader with the ability to use either method of accessing our principal bibliography of Mr. Cabell's Works.

The first of these, which we are calling "Brewer Order," lists the titles in Mr. Cabell's preferred order, which is based on his preferred arrangement of his books. This is the same method used in previous bibliographies by Frances Brewer and James Hall.

The second index lists the titles in simple chronological order of publication. This is the same method used in previous bibliographies by Merle Johnson, Guy Holt, and I.R. Brussell.

Either of our indexes will take you to the same data pages. They are just alternate methods of navigating the site.

For convenience sake, in these bibliographies and throughout the site, we have adopted the convention of referring to the key bibliographical texts by the surnames of their authors: Brewer, Bruccoli, Brussel and Hall: 

Brewer – Frances Brewer, James Branch Cabell: A Bibliography of his Writings, Biography and Criticism. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press (1957). This is in many ways the ‘standard’ work on Cabell’s writings. It is a traditional academic bibliography, and Cabell himself was a silent collaborator in it. In it the canon is numbered according to Cabell’s notions of The Biography and the Trilogies, rather than any chronological order. Brewer also includes extensive bibliographies of Cabell criticism, arranged both by author and chronologically. 

Bruccoli – Matthew J. Bruccoli, James Branch Cabell: A Bibliography, Part II:  Notes on the Cabell Collections at the University of Virginia. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press (1957). This is a supplement to Brewer’s work, containing a selective collation of textual variants, as well as extensive notes on the letters and other materials in the U. Va. collection. Bruccoli uses the same numbering system as Brewer. 

Brussel – I. R. Brussel, A Bibliography of the Writings of James Branch Cabell: A Revised Bibliography. Philadelphia: The Centaur Bookshop (1932). This was the first bibliography to include all the volumes in The Biography of the Life of Manuel. It is based on, but supersedes, Guy Holt’s 1924 bibliography. It includes detailed collations which are absent from Brewer and Hall. 

Hall – James N. Hall, James Branch Cabell: A Complete Bibliography (with a Supplement of Current Values of Cabell Books by Nelson Bond). New York: Revisionist Press (1974). This bibliography, compiled with collectors in mind, is the first to attempt to enumerate and classify the many editions, printings, and states in which Cabell’s books were issued. For purposes of reference, Hall assigned each issue or state a ‘code’ composed of an abbreviated title, a capital letter indicating the edition or setting, a number indicating which printing within the edition, and often also a small or parenthetical letter referring to the binding, series, or state. 

We have structured our bibliographies around Hall’s coding system as being more flexible, keyed as it is to title and edition, instead of Brewer’s numbering which is tied to an arbitrary non-chronological ordering of the Cabell canon. However, where appropriate, we often give the Brewer number as well. Since Hall’s book is now almost forty years old we have had to adapt his coding system in order to include items published after 1972, as well as some printings and states unknown to him, and a few corrections. When we cite a ‘new’ Hall code, we indicate this by prefixing an asterisk, thus: *Hall Cov-D2 (E), or thus: *LoL-A1e.  These codes will not be found in Hall’s book, although they use his form.   

In our references we will sometimes also cite Bruccoli or Brussel, as well as Johnson, Holt, Bond or Duke, by page number. These other bibliographies are:

- Merle Johnson, A Bibliographical Check-List of the Works of James Branch Cabell. New York: Frank Shay (1921).

- Guy Holt, A Bibliography of the Writings of James Branch Cabell.  Philadelphia: The Centaur Book Shop (1924).

- Maurice Duke, James Branch Cabell’s Library: A Catalogue. University of Iowa Ph.D. thesis (1968). A detailed description of Cabell’s own library, including many significant copies of his own books, now housed at VCU.

- Nelson Bond, “Current Values of Cabell Books”  pp. 217-29 in Hall (1974)

- Maurice Duke, James Branch Cabell, A Reference Guide.  Boston: G. K. Hall (1979). A bibliography of Cabell criticism in books and periodicals through 1975, expanding and extending Brewer’s work in that area.

- Bill Lloyd, Supplementary Bibliography: Writing about Cabell 1975-2015. Silver Stallion editor Bill Lloyd has extended Dr. Duke's Reference Guide through 2015.

In addition there are various briefer bibliographies and bibliographical writings contained in other books and periodicals. See here for a complete list.