Belanger 1977

From Whiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

edition: "all copies printed at one or later times from the same setting of type" (97)

impression: "within an edition, all copies printed at any one time" (97)

issue: "that part of an edition offered for sale at one time" (98); may have slightly different title pages, such as New York for American distribution and London for UK distribution

state: "minor differences in the printed text between one copy and another of the same book" (98); e.g. stop-press correctons; "variant states are caused before publication, just as variant issues are caused upon or after publication" (98)

publishers prefer the first of everything, state, issue, impression and edition -- even if uncorrected, and odd from the point of view of the reader, who wants the most "correct" ediction

two main sorts of bibliography:

1) enumerative bibliography: listing books according to some plan; sometimes called systematic bibliography; library card catalog is an example

2) analytical bibliography subsumes:

  • historical bibliography: history of books and the persons, machines, institutions producing them
  • textual bibliography: relationship between the material book and the text as the author conceived it
  • descriptive' bibliography: close physical description of books

Typefounder's role

pre-1500, printers cast their own type; by later 16th-century, typefounds were responsible for most type

Papermaker's role

pre-1800 paper has chain lines; all paper made in ratio 3:4; ribs of paper mold and therefore the chain lines always parallel short side of the sheet

Dard Hunter, Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft (New York: Knopf, 1947).

around 1760, papermakers began using wire mesh that doesn't produce chain lines, though it may still have a watermark or countermark; has smoother surface than laid paper (paper with chain lines)

machine paper in early 19c was produced on wire mesh, though false chain lines were sometimes rolled on with a dandy roll

deckles: uneven, feathery edges on the sides of handmade paper; trimmed off when book is bound; machine-made paper doesn't have it

unopened: book having folds of sheets still intact at top and outer edges uncut: book whose edges (deckles) aren't trimmed

Printer's role

format of a book: manner in which whole sheets are to be printed

folio in 6s: folio book made up of gatherings of 6 leaves (or 3 sheets) each

folio formats "always produce gatherings where the chain lines run vertically up and down the leaves; the watermarks and countermarks (if present) will appear approximately in the middle of the page" (106)

quarto formats, the chain lines are horizontal and watermark is in the gutter of the gathering, halfway up the leaf

octavo formats, chain lines will be vertical; watermark will be in the upper inner corner of the sheet

difficult / impossible to determine format of 19c books made with machine-made paper lacking chain lines, deckle edges or watermarks; books produced on paper made on endless rollers have no format, just a leaf size

Collational formula

letters J, U, and W come late to the Roman alphabet

brackets denote unsigned gatherings that still seem to have a place in the alphabet; if no letter can logically be assigned to them, the symbol PI is used

Greek letter X (chi) used for unsigned gatherings elsewhere in the book

Publisher's role

fold-out sheets, inserted illustrations and maps not part of the collational formula, but written after it

Binder's role

after 1770, binding can be part of identifying a book (before then, books were individually bound)