A jubilee of fifty books known only by title

Abstract

This article ends the special issue that aims to introduce the conception of “books known only by title” as a fruitful new focus of research. In this article, we include an annotated assortment of books known only by title. This collection of fifty such books is not exhaustive, but it may serve as an inspiration and a springboard for future researchers by demonstrating the breadth and rich diversity of this phenomenon. To aid such research, we have provided bibliographic information for each entry. We also discuss ways of categorizing these books and the challenges of those categorizations. The list is hardly exhaustive, but it is selective. Our examples center on the first millennium C.E., and they center on the traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Certain entries may push at those boundaries but were included because of their special interest to us. Most notably, the classical texts of Greco-Roman culture were not included; nor were the canons of East Asia, or many other literary cultures across the globe.