This detailed bibliographical description of Agrippa was commissioned for The Agrippa Files, and is based on examination of the copy in the New York Public Library supplemented by examination of the privately-held “Archive-1″ copy of the work (shown to the site editors by the publisher, Kevin Begos, Jr.) and the “promotional prospectus” in the Whitney Museum of American Art. Also consulted were descriptions of other known publicly-accessible copies in museums and libraries. Correspondence and an interview with the publisher supplied additional information.

Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, “Hacking ‘Agrippa’: The Source of the Online Text,” excerpted and adapted from a chapter-length discussion of the electronic text of Agrippa in Kirschenbaum’s book Mechanisms: New Media and the New Textuality (forthcoming from MIT Press). Kirschenbaum notes: “Mechanisms addresses itself to the textual and technical primitives of electronic writing, with special attention to the qualities of erasure, variability, repeatability, and survivability for electronic objects.”