McKenzie 2002: Difference between revisions

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*individually, books took longer to print
*individually, books took longer to print
*smaller earlier presses seemed to use concurrent printing as much as larger 18c houses
*smaller earlier presses seemed to use concurrent printing as much as larger 18c houses
*compositors would have been setting more than one book at a time
*formes could/would be sent to any press-crew ready to take it -- not necessarily assigned to one book
*we shouldn't underestimate the flexibility of the common press as a machine; each press had several friskets cut to common formats, and didn't have lengthy make-ready of 19/20c machines (30)
:"If we are correctly to reconstruct the detailed operations of a printing house -- even a very small one -- or a true account of the printing of any one book, we must therefore do it in a way that shows the complete pattern of work in its full complexity." (30)
concurrent production forces us to rethink our hypotheses regarding bibliographic evidence; e.g.:
*change in the measure of a compositor's stick doesn't necessarily mean a new compositor began working at that point, because compositors would have been changing their measures all the time to accommodate the needs of the multiple different books they were working on (31-2)
*although we rely on theories of staggered presswork based on reconstructed skeleton formes, it's difficult to correlate the use of multiple running headlines to the use of a particular number of presses
*fonts would be depleted, leading to setting in formes; but would allow some progress to be made on all work (46)
an incorrect account of the printing process can lend "massive authority to the erroneous assumption that a book was normally put into production as an independent unit" (42)
"I know of no evidence that obliges us to think of one sheet (or forme) being followed immediately on the press by another of the same book." (47)

Revision as of 17:38, 19 June 2010

McKenzie, D. F. "Printers of the Mind: Some Notes on Bibliographical Theories and Printing-House Practices." Making Meaning: "Printer's of the Mind and Other Essays. Ed. Peter D. McDonald and Michael F. Suarez, S.J. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.


shouldn't impose our post-industrial assumptions about "careers" and "labor" standards

for example, performance contracts: meant journeyman could not be counted on as regular labor (perhaps a reason printers were taking on more apprentices), and workman wouldn't work harder than they were contracted to do (22-3); this "normality of non-uniformity" has uncomfortable consequences for bibliographic methodology (23)

we generally assume at least one compositor and one press-crew worked fairly consistently on any printed book; however, numbers show that the Cambridge and Bowyer presses followed the principle of concurrent production;

  • individually, books took longer to print
  • smaller earlier presses seemed to use concurrent printing as much as larger 18c houses
  • compositors would have been setting more than one book at a time
  • formes could/would be sent to any press-crew ready to take it -- not necessarily assigned to one book
  • we shouldn't underestimate the flexibility of the common press as a machine; each press had several friskets cut to common formats, and didn't have lengthy make-ready of 19/20c machines (30)
"If we are correctly to reconstruct the detailed operations of a printing house -- even a very small one -- or a true account of the printing of any one book, we must therefore do it in a way that shows the complete pattern of work in its full complexity." (30)

concurrent production forces us to rethink our hypotheses regarding bibliographic evidence; e.g.:

  • change in the measure of a compositor's stick doesn't necessarily mean a new compositor began working at that point, because compositors would have been changing their measures all the time to accommodate the needs of the multiple different books they were working on (31-2)
  • although we rely on theories of staggered presswork based on reconstructed skeleton formes, it's difficult to correlate the use of multiple running headlines to the use of a particular number of presses
  • fonts would be depleted, leading to setting in formes; but would allow some progress to be made on all work (46)

an incorrect account of the printing process can lend "massive authority to the erroneous assumption that a book was normally put into production as an independent unit" (42)

"I know of no evidence that obliges us to think of one sheet (or forme) being followed immediately on the press by another of the same book." (47)