The Hand-Press Book Leaf Laboratory Detailed Instructions and Tips
Each student will get access to a single leaf from an old, rare, early printed book from Special Collections. The leaves were cut, by a former owner, from a copy whose binding probably had deteriorated. The former owner realized that s/he could make more by selling it, page by page, on the rare book market, than by selling an entire book that was not in desirable shape as a collector's copy. Though we regret that decision because of the evidence of the past it irrevocably destroyed, it also made these materials available to us for training in archival research. Individual leaves also pose one of the most difficult and instructive problems in identifying the edition from which the whole book came. Many loose leaves from early printed books and manuscripts are now found, uncataloged, in library collections and for sale at online auction sites. Unless we happen to have a title or colophon page that would record the city, printer, date, and other information about the edition, we must discover that information from forensic evidence we detect in the leaves that we do have, when compared with bibliographic information available about known bound editions in online sources such as the English Short Title Catalogue. We can assume from the outset that the paper, type fount, ink, text, and other evidence are typical of many books made in the hand-press era. If you combine your leaf's evidence with that of the other students' leaves, you will find that, together, you can begin to infer the structure of the whole book from which the leaves were taken. Only the binding evidence will be lost, and surviving copies of that edition may show us what its binding once may have looked like. Do what you can in class, but if you are interested in doing more, you will be able to use your leaf in the Special Collections Seminar Room any time the archives are open (usually 10 to 12:30 and 1:30 to 4, Monday through Friday during the regular semester). Bring or share laptop computers to take advantage of Internet-based resources to answer the following questions by closely examining your book leaf. Periodically post revised drafts of your research notes to the Canvas "Hand-Press Book Leaf Lab" discussion, and take a moment to read other students’ notes for clues about your own leaf.
Specific Laboratory Instructions:
1) Leaf Size. How tall and wide is the leaf, in centimeters, at its tallest/widest? Editions are printed on paper that starts with a known pair of dimensions shared by all books emerging from the press and bindery. The first binding puts each book under the binder's "plough" to even the top, fore, and bottom edges, cutting off some millimeters of the original page size. At this point, most copies from an edition are the same height and width. Later rebinding subjects books to the binder's plough again, usually reducing the height more than the width, but gradually cutting away the margins toward the text block, sometimes slicing off page numbers, headers, and signature marks.
2) Printer's and Binder's Paratext. These tiny details can be very important in identifying the editino from which a separated leaf was taken. Printers decide long in advance how all the pages will be set up (see also "Text Block" below) and those plans tend to differ from one similar edition to another. Does your leaf have page numbers on both sides, a sign of a later hand-press-era book, or does it have folio numbers only on the "recto" or right side of each leaf. Folio numbering, often preceded by "F." or "Fol.," is a sign of an early hand-press-era book. Foliation is replaced by page numbering in the sixteenth century, at around the same time that the printer's information in a colophon at the end of the book was duplicated and then replaced by the same information on a title page at the front. Are the numbers Arabic (later) or Roman (earlier)? Does your leaf have a signature at the bottom, and if the signature is numbered, is it in Arabic of Roman numerals (e.g., "Aii" vs. "A2")? Does your page have a running "header" identifying the text or section of the text to which the page belongs? Does your leaf have a catch-word or words at the bottom right of the "verso" or reverse side of the leaf that would link it to the first word in the upper left corner of the recto side of the following leaf? If so, do we have that leaf, and do the catch-words match?
3) Paper Construction. Are there chainlines and tranchefilles in the paper when a light is held behind the page? Is there a watermark and/or countermark visible when a light is held behind the page? If so, where is it located on the page and what does it look like when complete? Do you see other evidence of the paper's hand-made origins, like variations in thickness or "vatman's tears"? Stevenson and the RBS movie about format will guide you in understanding the significance of these facts in determining whether the page comes from a folio (2o), quarto (4o), octavo (8vo), duodecimo (12mo) or more complex format.
4) Text Block. This evidence is, like the paratext, "smoking gun" proof of a leaf belonging to a specific edition. Once the press is set up for a given height/width of text and a given number of lines per page, every leaf will conform to those decisions. How big is the text block (h x w in cm.), how many columns are there on each page, and how many lines per column compose the block? Again, double check whether each page has a header and/or footer that identify the contents of the text block or do only some pages get them?
5) Type Fount. The type fount's designs are another kind of "smoking gun" data especially in combination with the pages' paratext and the text-block layout. What kind of type was used to print the text: gothic or roman? If it is gothic type and if the book might be an incubable (1455-1501), does your page contain a capital "M" which might be compared with Haebler's table of "M" fonts? How tall, in millimeters, are the miniscule letters, the fount's "x-height"? Does the printer use italic type at any point? Can you identify the type fount as belonging to any of the known English or European printers of the hand-press era?
6) Edition Content. All printed books are "an edition of some text by some author (or "Anonymous"), but which edition? Printers watched what texts sold out and reprinted new editions of their own, and other printers' editions, often many times in many cities. What is the content of the text? In what language is it written? If, as is likely in old books, the text is mainly in Latin, are there any vernacular languages on the page, perhaps in paratext notes? Try to find your edition in an existing bibliographic description using the English Short Title Catalogue, the University of Karlsruhe Virtual Catalogue , or a bookseller's description of an edition for sale at ABEBooks.com.
7) Edition Decoration. Does
your leaf contain any printer's ornaments? Such ornaments, were
often of familiar content (festoons or garlands, shells, putti (naked
babies with or without wings [erotes]), triumphal arches).
Individual ornament types (the metal units) were highly individualized,
however, and detailed digital images of your ornament type might match
up with an online image of an ink impression of the same type.
Does your leaf contain any woodblock prints or engravings? If so,
they also are likely to be of familiar content (warriors, cities, Popes
and prophets, Biblical scenes, animals) but again in each individual
cases a woodblock or engraving will belong to the print shop that
commissioned it from its artist (who may not have signed it until late,
ca. C17-18 CE). Close examaination of digital images of your
print or engraving may disclose details that can identify the edition,
or if found in another printed book, the printer and city and era in
which it was used.
8) Textual Content: After you have completed the physical description of the leaf in steps 1 through 7 above, attempt to transcribe as much of the text as you can decipher, and post your description and transcription to the Canvas Hand-Press Book Lab discussion forum. Can you identify it as something you have read before, or by style as something by an author you previously have read? Is there a digital version of the text available online? What edition of the text are you reading? Can you identify it, or at least narrow the field of possible editions? See the first "guide" page above before attempting either of these.
9) Share Evidence with Colleagues:
One great advantage of bibliograpic investigation is that scholars
collaborate with each other by sharing evidence and expertise. As
we will discover, the more eyes on a given piece of evidence, the better we all will see it. What is the relationship between your leaf and the leaves of other
students in class? This laboratory is replicating an increasingly common
experience of readers who encounter sheared-off leaves of old books (MS or
print) and have few skills needed to identify the print edition from which their
leaf/leaves originated.
Share what you have on the Canvas Discussion before the
next class, and be prepared to put together your findings. Can you identify the printer and edition of the text your
pages come from? Remember that type faces, page layout (especially columns and lines
per page), pagination and signing, format (watermark and chainline
information), and page height (in centimeters) are key determiners in identifying which edition of a frequently
printed text you are holding. In all cases, be extremely careful to
distinguish among what things you know for certain, what you think
probably may be true, and what you suspect might be true, as well as
those things you know you do not know.
If you have not already done so in the course of the desbib class, make sure you have read these two web pages!
Links and Advice for Doing Descriptive Bibliography: an introduction to the tools available for solving the three main problems presented by an anonymous old text: identifying the text (content, author), identifying the edition, and analyzing the text using the techniques of descriptive bibliography. The first two stages involve using some familiar kinds of Internet tools in unusual ways. The third stage guides the user to a page containing extensive links to online images of old books to illustrate bindings, type fonts, paper, and provenance evidence.
Dictionary of National Biography: an indispensable tool for researching names found in books printed in England or owned by English readers/collectors. Getting to know the DNB, and Who's Who, its American counterpart, will acquaint the researcher with the individuals who have inhabited the past in which their texts came to life and through which they passed on their way to our hands.