The original installment of Eusko bibliographia,[1] covering
publications up to 1960, appeared as Cuerpo C of the Enciclopedia
general ilustrada del País Vasco. Cuerpo A consists of a Diccionario
enciclopédico vasco,[2] Cuerpo B of an Enciclopedia sistemática[3] and
there is also a Cuerpo anexo.[4] Volume 1 of Cuerpo C has a title page
and forematter (dated 1968) in Basque, Castilian, French, English, and
German. Its English subtitle indicates its scope: "Dictionary of
Basque bibliography; a cataloguing of books, pamphlets, leaflets, and
journal articles referring to the Basque Country, classified by
author, subject matter, and place names." Generally, newspaper
articles are excluded.
There are 7 and two-thirds volumes in Cuerpo C for the pre-1960
entries. After the end of the main alphabetical sequence, the last 229
pages of Vol. 8 (published in 1978) initiate the first supplement, for
the period covering 1961/75. The alphabetical sequence of the first
supplement, however, goes only as far as Union in Vol. 10 of Cuerpo C
(published in 1981). The balance, United States - Zytzar, is bound in
an 107-page appendix on colored pages at the end of the separately
titled supplement for the period 1976/80, which appeared in 3 volumes
with a different publisher.[5]
Eusko bibliographia is a dictionary index in one sequence for authors,
titles, subjects (in Castilian), and major place names, with
see-references and indices of subject and place name headings. Variant
spellings of names are listed together in one place. There can be
multiple entries for the same bibliographic item, occasionally with
see-references for fuller information. Book reviews are indicated by
asterisks. The supplements contain references to earlier installments
and their reviews.
In the supplements the editorial matter is in Castilian and Basque. In
the last supplement, the Prologue (on Bilbao[6] and especially on the
methods followed by him in his bibliography) is by Luís Moreno
Martínez, Bilbao's successor as Director of the
"Eusko-Bibliographia".
To test Bilbao's coverage for 1981/85, we have compared Eusko
bibliographia with the MLA bibliography online for the same years;
what one would think to be a test of the one turns out to be a
revelation of the inadequacies of both. In the section on Pio Baroja,
Bilbao lists 35 editions, the MLA only one - which Bilbao happens to
omit. Of the 50 studies in the MLA, Bilbao gives 15; he generally
overlooks comparative studies that omit Baroja's name in the title.
But also crucially omitted is David Billick's bibliography on Pio
Baroja.[7] Conversely, of the 49 secondary titles in Bilbao, the MLA
gives 15; generally the MLA omits the local and popular titles.
However, both of the generalizations about the respective omissions
are rather porous. Both bibliographies omit citations from the same
sources (authors or journals) that they use for other entries. Bilbao
cites both of H. Ramsden's 1982 books on La busca, while the MLA lists
only one, apparently thinking the other, in the Critical guides to
Spanish texts series, is a duplicate or ghost.
The beginning student of Basque literature should obviously start with
the MLA, but the exhaustive researcher on a specialized topic should
be sure to complement it with Eusko bibliographia, which belongs with
the original set in any serious Basque collection.
Jeffry Larson
Zurück an den Bildanfang