I also wish to thank others who have given me great assistance. They
are Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach to whom I continually turned for advice,
Dr. Lawrence C. Wroth of the John Carter Brown Library and Dr. Leslie
W. Dunlap of the Library of Congress who very kindly read over my
manuscript and gave me the benefit of their suggestions and criticisms,
Mr. David C. Mearns and Miss Elsie Rackstraw of the Library of Congress
and Mrs. Ruth Lapham Butler of the Ayer Collection of the Newberry
Library who so freely and generously made available to me the great
collections of works on the Philippines in their libraries, Dr. John
H. Powell of the Free Library of Philadelphia who helped me find
reference books of the utmost importance, and the many librarians
who courteously answered written queries about early Philippine
material. EDWIN WOLF 2ND.






DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA


The first book printed in the Philippines has been the object of a hunt
which has extended from Manila to Berlin, and from Italy to Chile,
for four hundred and fifty years. The patient research of scholars,
the scraps of evidence found in books and archives, the amazingly
accurate hypotheses of bibliographers who have sifted the material
so painstakingly gathered together, combine to make its history a
bookish detective story par excellence.