Cataloguing Discrepancies reviews the description and cataloguing, from the early eighteenth century to the present day, of an early English Breviary, printed in 1493. With a critical eye, Andrew Hughes summarizes the work that has been done on this liturgical book, of which two complete copies and a number of fragments are extant. How these copies have been described – and more importantly how these accounts differ – is a central question of this volume.

Based on the discrepancies and errors in the existing catalogues of medieval liturgical books, many of which repeat erroneous information for generations, the authors illustrate the defects, problems, and opportunities encountered when technologies of the fifteenth and the twenty-first centuries converge. Not only questioning existing bibliographical practices, Cataloguing Discrepancies suggests practical means for improvements to the future description of early printed books of this kind.