Victor Madsen (1873-1941) was a librarian at the Royal Library. In the years 1931-38 he published his catalogue of the large collection of incunabula in the library, a collection which had grown considerably in the first decades of the twentieth century. Madsen’s two-volume catalogue was supplemented in 1963 by a third volume, published by Erik Dal.
The entire work consists of three volumes and two additions (tillæg):
Volume I-II contain the catalogue, which is alphabetically arranged according to author and numbered in succession. For each item are given references – in abbreviated form – to foreign catalogues of incunabula. The abbreviations are explained in the bibliography found pp. 566-70 in Volume II.
In Volume II are also found indexes of places of publication (trykkesteder), printers (bogtrykkere) etc. together with concordances of the numbers given in Hain’s and Copinger catalogues of incunabula and in Madsen’s predecessor J.A. Bølling’s catalogue of incunabula in the Royal Library (published in the 1890s). Besides there is a list of provenances (proveniensfortegnelse) and a bibliography. These indexes are found through the list of contents (Indholdsfortegnelse) of the book (cf. below).
Volume III contains a catalogue of the accession since the appearance of Madsen’s catalogue. It is not arranged alphabetically, but the numbering is successive in extension of Madsen’s. Further, there is a survey of incunabula in other Danish libraries and a number of indexes as in Madsen’s Volume II.
The two additions register new incunabula in the Royal Library since Erik Dal’s Volume III.