Edward Gordon Duff (1863 1924) was a bibliographer and librarian with a particular interest in early printed books. He was librarian of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, from 1893 to 1900, and Sandars Reader in Bibliography at Cambridge in 1899, 1904 and 1911. Alongside research and writing he also did freelance cataloguing. Duff's work set new standards of accuracy in bibliography, which he considered a science. Early Printed Books was published in 1893 as part of A. W. Pollard's series Books about Books, and became a standard work on the subject. Duff provides a concise and clear...

B. H. Streeter (1874 1937) was an Oxford theologian and biblical scholar. From 1915 to 1934 he was a canon of Hereford Cathedral, which is famous for its medieval chained library. Books were rare and precious items in the middle ages, and were frequently chained to the bookshelf and read on the lectern below to prevent unauthorised removal. Streeter's researches during the Hereford library's restoration led to the publication in 1931 of this illustrated study of early English libraries. It examines in detail the arrangement of libraries from medieval times to the eighteenth century, focusing...