A passionate collector and meticulous bibliographer, Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller published the first volume of Ma Bibliothèque poétique in 1973 in order to unveil part of his substantial private collection of editions of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century poetry. Over the next several decades, Barbier-Mueller continued to add new volumes to his Bibliothèque, ultimately publishing a series of four volumes split into eight books. The series focuses primarily on the sixteenth-century poetic coterie the Pléiade, with a clear emphasis on its founder, Pierre de Ronsard, whose poetry serves as the subject of the second volume of Ma Bibliothèque poétique. The first part of the volume on Ronsard appeared in 1990; the second part was published in 2017, after Barbier-Mueller's death in 2016.

This 2017 publication contains the additional works by Ronsard that the bibliographer collected after 1990. These works are presented in several sections, which include Ronsard's poetic collections in 1555–56, circumstantial poems published in 1558–59, political poetry (notably poems that make up the Discours des Misères de ce temps), various publications from 1565 to 1587, seventeenth-century editions of Ronsard's Œuvres, seventeenth-century editions of sonnet collections, musical works, and, finally, publications by other authors in which Ronsard's poems appear. Of these sections, only the section on music is entirely new; the rest build on elements already present in the 1990 collection, with significant and notable additions in the areas of the poet's Hymnes and Elegies and in seventeenth-century editions of the Œuvres. At the end of the book, the reader can navigate these additions with a clear and helpful comprehensive table of all of the works that appear in the 1990 and 2017 volumes of Ma Bibliothèque poétique. In this second volume of his bibliography on Ronsard, Barbier-Mueller continues to demonstrate his expertise in Ronsard's poetry through the detailed explanations of the poetic works that he presents (although the historical background he provides does not add much to our knowledge about Ronsard). In addition to offering bibliographical descriptions of newer acquisitions, the author reconsiders some of his previous assertions on Ronsard. This new book benefits from a dialogue with François Rouget, whose recent work requires Barbier-Mueller to reconsider or defend his earlier stances. As a case in point, Rouget's use of the transparent page to distinguish between two different editions has led Barbier-Mueller to understand that two nearly identical versions of Ronsard's Continuation du Discours are in fact different editions (108–09).

Unlike in previous volumes, in this most recent installment Barbier-Mueller recounts many stories—sometimes circuitous and often comical—of how he acquired some of the books in his collection. In so doing, the author reflects on his long career as a collector. These anecdotes will amuse insiders of the book trade and of sixteenth-century literary criticism, although they can on occasion seem somewhat tangential to the subject at hand. The book is printed in the same substantial format as its predecessors, and it includes three color photos of books and their bindings, images of title pages, reproductions of some additional pages, and thorough bibliographical descriptions of the works and their variants.

The world has changed a great deal since that first volume of Ma Bibliothèque poétique appeared in 1973, and even since the 1990 publication of Barbier-Mueller's previous book on Ronsard's poetry. At one time, Barbier-Mueller's books offered scholars an opportunity to encounter sixteenth-century texts that were otherwise difficult or even impossible to access. Now, with the proliferation of online resources—most notably, the enormous collection of free texts on the Bibliothèque nationale de France's Gallica site, the Swiss site e-rara.ch, and Google Books—many of the works described in Ma Bibliothèque poétique can now be accessed online. Barbier-Mueller's books remain important, however, because of their ability to parse the various editions of Ronsard's work and because of the insights of its author. Barbier-Mueller laments that no one may ever be willing or able to undertake the monumental task of compiling a complete bibliography of Ronsard; fortunately for us, his eye for detail and his comprehensive knowledge of Ronsard's works provide a useful resource for scholars and librarians in the meantime.