In German literary history, the period from 1777 to 1835 is one of transition. Beginning with Michael Denis' Einleitung in die Bücherkunde, the first work to separate bibliography from Literargeschichte , the period ends with Georg Gottfried Gervinus' Geschichte der poetischen Nationalliteratur der Deutschen, generally accepted as the first genuine German history of literature and the first example of the new Literaturwissenschaft . This study is a bibliography of those works which might be called early German histories of literature, as well as a detailed description of their aims, methods and contents.