The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

How could I not remember to post about this wonderful set of books.... If you have never had to pleasure to read from the New Grove Dictionary... go to the library and find a copy and pull out a few volumes. Also, you can usually find an older copy on eBay for cheap. Here is some info from wiki:

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is one of the largest reference works on western music. Originally published under the title A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and later as Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, it has gone through several editions since the 19th century and is widely used. In recent years it has been made available as an electronic resource called Grove Music Online, which is now an important part of Oxford Music Online.

A Dictionary of Music and Musicians

A Dictionary of Music and Musicians was first published in four volumes (1879, 1880, 1883, 1889) edited by George Grove with an Appendix edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland in the fourth volume. An Index edited by Mrs. E. Wodehouse was issued as a separate volume in 1890. In 1900, minor corrections were made to the plates and the entire series was reissued in four volumes, with the index added to volume 4. The original edition and the reprint are now freely available online.[1][2] Grove limited the chronological span of his work to begin at 1450 while continuing up to the present day.

Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians

The second edition (Grove II), in five volumes, was edited by Fuller Maitland and published from 1904 to 1910, this time as Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. The individual volumes of the second edition were reprinted many times. An American Supplement edited by Waldo Selden Pratt and Charles N. Boyd was added in 1920. This edition removed the first edition's beginning date of 1450,[3] though important earlier composers and theorists are still missing from this edition. These volumes are also now freely available online.

The third edition (Grove III), also in five volumes, was an extensive revision of the 2nd edition; it was edited by H. C. Colles and published in 1927.

The fourth edition (Grove IV), also edited by Colles, was published in 1940 in five volumes (a reprint of the third edition, with some corrections). In addition to the American Supplement,[7] Macmillan also published (in New York[8] and London[9]) a Supplementary Volume edited by Colles.

The fifth edition (Grove V), in nine volumes, was edited by Eric Blom and published in 1954. This was the most thoroughgoing revision of the work since its inception, with many articles rewritten in a more modern style and a large number of entirely new articles. Many of the articles were written by Blom personally, or translated by him. An additional Supplementary Volume, prepared for the most part by Eric Blom, followed in 1961. Blom died in 1959, and the Supplementary Volume was completed by Denis Stevens. The fifth edition was reprinted in 1966, 1968, 1970, 1973, and 1975.[10]

The New Grove

First edition

The next edition was published in 1980 under the name The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and was greatly expanded to 20 volumes with 22,500 articles and 16,500 biographies.[11] Its senior editor was Stanley Sadie with Nigel Fortune also serving as one of the main editors for the publication.

It was reprinted with minor corrections each subsequent year until 1995, except 1982 and 1983. In the mid-1990s, the hardback set sold for about $2,300. A paperback edition was reprinted in 1995 which sold for $500.
ISBN 0-333-23111-2 – hardback
ISBN 1-56159-174-2 – paperback
ISBN 0-333-73250-2 – British special edition
ISBN 1-56159-229-3 – American special ed

Dave