Doing "desbib": an example
An example of a bibliographic description of a book edition from which trained readers can reconstruct what all complete copies of the edition should look like:
Bede, the Venerable. THE HISTORY OF / THE CHURCH OF ENGLANDE / Compiled by the Venerable Bede, / Englishman. / Translated out of Latin in to English by Thomas / Stapleton Student in Diuinite. Imprinted at Antwerp: By Iohn Laet, / at the signe of the Rape: with / Priuilege, Anno, 1565.
[14], 192, [4]; 19 cm. (4to). Signed [asterisk]6, [triangle]4, [parallel lines]4, A-3C4. Numbered 1-164 [165-168 misnumbered 164] 169-92.
Open the hyperlink above in a new window and compare the image of the title page with what you see in the "diplomatic transcription" of its contents, which is meant to indicate precisely what type is on the title page and how it is laid out. The virgule or "slash" (/) indicates a line break.
The information below the title page transcription tells the bibliographer that there are fourteen un-numbered pages of front matter (square brakets=no numbers printed on the page), followed by 192 numbered pages, followed by four un-numbered pages of back matter. The typesetters mistakenly forgot to change the page numbers in the basic page frame from 164 to 165-68, but they figured it out by pages 169-92, and nobody thought it was important enough an error to pull the mistaken sheets and reprint them. It may seem obvious, but we need to remember that the page numbers were set in type to guide readers, who had come to expect such apparatus by 1565 although the earliest printed books had no numbering at all, and even the intermediate era works only "foliated" the right side of each leaf.
Following overall survey of the book's construction (front matter, main text, back matter), the description tells us about the size and format of the book. In this instance, the whole page before rebinding was 19 centimeters high (though our copy might be shorter). The format is quarto (4to, or sometimes just 4o), i.e., each sheet was printed with four different pages' text on it, and the resulting sheets were folded twice and cut once to make four leaves or eight pages nested together in the proper order.
After the book's physical appearance, the "desbib" tells us in what units it was printed and how those units were bound together by the bookbinder. Superscript numbers indicate the number of leaves in a "gathering" or folded group of leaves that were printed together. At the bottom of the first leaf in the first gathering of six leaves was an asterisk "signature" to tell the bookbinder to place that bundle of leaves first, followed by a gathering of four leaves whose first was signed with a triangle, and four more leaves whose first leaf was signed with parallel lines. Finally, the main body of the text was bound together in gatherings of four leaves each, the bottom of the first gathering's leaf being signed A through Z, AA through ZZ, and AAA through CCC (omitting the characters "J" and "W" which did not exist in the Latin alphabet, which used "i" and "uu" instead). . The signature letters and numbers were only placed on the page to guide the bookbinder who assembled the loose sheets into the book, but they later were invaluable evidence for bibliographers trying to determine how the edition was put together and, hence, how its type was set for printing.
Identifying the edition: the case of the "Moby Shakespeare" vs. Print Editions; Title Pages (complex or simple) vs. Colophons (early hand-press sense of the word) vs. Printers Marks, AKA "colophons" (modern printer's colophon) Signatures, pagination, and bibliographic description
Some web pages to help you do your "desbib" on the cadaver book: quick guide to format determination; desbib links and advice. Ennys, Penryn, Cornwall, from the library window (thanks, Cameron!)
