Alfred W. Pollard was the driving force behind the Bibliographical Society of London in the first forty years of its existence and the dominant figure in the antiquarian work of the British Museum Library until his retirement as Keeper of Printed Books in 1924. In both capacities he was an organizer of unparalleled vigor and farsightedness. The large bibliographical works he started, above all A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640 (1927) and the British Museum catalogue of incunabula, are still, in continuations or revisions, of fundamental importance for the study of the history of the book.

Pollard was by no means a narrow enumerative bibliographer. His work on the transmission of William Shakespeare's texts transformed the subject. He was equally at home with the history of book illustration, the rise of English copyright practice, and the explication of...