THE COLLECTING AND DESCRIBING OF EARLY PRINTED BOOKS.

It is exactly one hundred years since Panzer, “the one true naturalist among general bibliographers,” published the first volume of his Annales Typographici, and in this period two distinct methods of bibliography have grownup.

The more popular, generally associated with the name of Dibdin, treats specimens of early printing merely as curiosities, valuable only according to their rarity or intrinsic worth, or for some individual peculiarity found in them.

The other method, of which Panzer was the first practical exponent, was called by Henry Bradshaw the Natural History method. Each press must be looked upon as a genus, and each book as a species, and the more or less close connection of the different members of the family must be traced by the characters which they present to our observation. Bradshaw’s own work is the best example of this method, and a beginner can follow no better model than the papers which he wrote on early printing.

In collecting or studying early printed books, one of the most fatal and common mistakes is the undertaking of too much. The day is past when one man will set himself to compile such works as Hain’s Repertorium Bibliographicum, or that very much greater book, Panzer’s Annales Typographici; both wonderful achievements, but unfinished and imperfect. No one who has not had practical experience can imagine the amount of information which can be obtained by taking a small subject and working at it carefully; or conversely, the amount of careful study and research that is requisite to work a small subject properly.

Take as examples Blades’ Life of Caxton and Edmond’s Aberdeen Printers, the two best monographs we possess. They contain a very great deal of most careful work, and sufficient material to enable any one who desires to study those particular subjects to do so thoroughly.

In collecting, in the same way, a beginner who wishes his collection to be of real value should not be too catholic in his tastes, but confine his attention to one subject. A collection of fifty miscellaneous fifteenth-century books has not, as a rule, more interest than may be associated with the individual books. But take a collection of fifty books printed in one town, or by one printer. Each book is then a part of a series, and obtains a value on that account over and above its own individual rarity or interest.

The arrangement and cataloguing of early printed books is a part of the subject which presents many difficulties, In many great collections, these books, for purposes of bibliographical study, are absolutely lost. They are not bought, at any rate not once in twenty cases, for their literary value, but simply and solely as specimens of early printing or curiosities. But, having been bought, they are treated as any other book bought solely for its literary value, and in no other way, i.e. they are catalogued under the author or concealed in mazes of cross-reference. If such books are to be bought at all, they should surely be treated in some way which would enable them to fulfil the object for which they were acquired.

In the University Library, Cambridge, the fifteenth-century books are all placed together arranged under countries according to size, with a press-mark indicating the country, the size, and the consecutive number. Thus any new acquisition can be added, and placed at once without disarranging the order on the shelves. Any further subdivision, as, for instance, under towns, is impracticable on the shelves, but must be done on paper.

The catalogue slips can then be arranged under towns and printers, so that any one wishing to study the productions of a particular town or printer can at once obtain all the books of the particular class in the library. If he knows his books by the author’s name, they can be found from the general catalogue of the library. In private collections, the number of books is, as a rule, so small that they can be arranged in any order without trouble.

In describing an early printed book, great care should always be taken not to confuse what is common to all examples of the book with what is specially the peculiarity of an individual copy. The description should always be in two parts, the first general and the second particular. The first part should give the place, the date, the name of the printer, the size, an exact collation; the second, an account of the binding, a list of the earlier owners, the imperfections, if any, and similar information.

As regards the place, there does not yet seem to be any fixed rule as to the form in which it should be written, whether in Latin or in English. Many of the older bibliographies having been written in Latin, and the colophons of the majority of early books being in the same language, we have grown familiar with the Latin forms of many names. But now that more books are being written in English, it seems more sensible to use the English forms. The pedantic habit of writing the name in the vernacular, as KÖln for Cologne, GenÈve for Geneva, or KjØbenhavn for Copenhagen, should be avoided; it simply tends to confuse, and serves no useful purpose. The great aim of a bibliographical description should be to give the fullest information in the most concise and clear form. Since English books are presumably written for English readers, it is best they should be written in English, and the exhibition of superfluous learning in the manner is almost always a sign of a want of necessary learning in the matter.

The date should always be given in Arabic figures; and if there is any peculiarity in the form of the date as it occurs in the book, it should be added between brackets. The day of the month, when it is given in the colophon, should always be put down in the description, as it is often of great importance. In countries where the new year began in March we are apt to get confused with the dates, and forget, for example, that the 20th of January 1490 is later than the 20th of December 1490.

The beginning of the year varied in different countries, and often in different towns. The four most usual times for its commencement were: Christmas Day (December 25), the day of the Circumcision (January 1), the day of the Conception (March 25), and the day of the Resurrection (Easter Day). The 25th of March was, on the whole, most common; but in dating any book exactly, the rule for the particular town where it was printed should be ascertained.

An approximate date should always be supplied to the description of an undated book; but this date should not be a mere haphazard conjecture, but should be determined by an examination of the characteristics of the book, and comparison with dated books from the same press, so that the date that is ascribed is merely another expression for the characteristics noticed in the book. It is only after careful study that accurate dates can be ascribed to books of a particular press, and monographs on particular printers must be consulted when it is possible.

On the question of sizes there seem to be many opinions. There was originally no doubt on the subject, and there is no reason for any doubt now.

There are two opposing elements at work, size and form. Originally, when all paper was handmade, and did not vary very much in measurement, books were spoken of as folio, quarto, octavo, etc., according to the folding of the sheet; and these terms apply to the folding of the sheet. In the present century, when paper is made by machinery, and made to any size, the folding cannot be taken as a criterion, and the various sizes are determined by measurement, the old terms, applicable only to the size by folding, being retained. What has evidently led to all this confusion is the application of the same terms to two different things.

In describing old books, the old form size should be used, being the only one which does not vary. Under the other notation, a cut-down copy of a book in quarto becomes an octavo, and thus two editions are made out of one.

The size of an old book is very simply recognised by holding up a page to the light. Certain white lines, called wire-marks, will be noticed, occurring, as a rule, about an inch apart, and running at right angles to the fine lines, These wire-lines are perpendicular in a folio, octavo, 32mo, and horizontal in a quarto and 16mo. In a 12mo, as the name implies, the sheet is folded in twelve; and in the earlier part at least of the sixteenth century this was done in such a way that the wire-lines are perpendicular; the height of the sheet forming two pages, as is the case in an octavo, while the width is divided into six, instead of four as in an octavo. The later habit has been to fold the sheet differently, the height of the sheet forming the width of four pages, and the width of the sheet the height of three pages; consequently the wire-lines are horizontal. Among early printed books the 12mo is a very uncommon form; quartos are most numerous, and after them folios.

It should always be remembered that the signature has nothing whatever to do with the size. It is merely a guide to the binder to show him how many leaves go to the quire, and the order in which they come. The binder found it convenient to have his quires of from eight to twelve leaves each, and the quires were thus made up whether the book was folio, quarto, or octavo. Let us assume, for example, that the quires were to consist of eight leaves each, then each quire of the folio book contained four sheets, of the quarto book two sheets, and of the octavo book one sheet. A book on Book Collecting, lately published, gives the following extraordinary remarks on finding the size:—“The leaves must be counted between signature and signature, and then if there are two leaves the book is a folio, if four a 4to, if eight an 8vo, if twelve a 12mo, etc.... I should advise the young collector to count the leaves between signature and signature, and to abide by the result, regardless of all the learned arguments of specialists.” The absolute folly of these remarks on the sizes of books will be apparent to any one who has seen an old book. The earliest folios printed in Germany and Italy are in quires of ten leaves, i.e. there are ten leaves between signature and signature; in the majority of early folios there are eight. Again, there is no folio book in existence among early books (excepting the block-books, which are in a class apart) with only two leaves to the signature.

Wynkyn de Worde made up many of his quartos in quires of eight and four leaves alternately; most early 16mos were made up in quires of eight leaves, and had therefore two signatures to each complete sheet. In the same way many 24mos were made up in quires of twelve leaves. All these books would be wrongly described by counting the leaves between the signatures; in fact, that method comes right by accident only in the case of some octavos and a few 12mos and 16mos.[41]

The collation of a book is the enumeration of the number of leaves according to the way in which they are arranged in quires, and this collation should be given whether the quires are signed or not. If there are signatures, there can be no difficulty in counting the number of leaves which go to each quire; but when there are no signatures, as is the case with most books before 1475, the collation is a more difficult matter. The first thing to be looked at, if the book has no MS. signatures, is the sewing, which shows us the centre of the quire,[42] and we can then count from sewing to sewing. This gives us only the halves of two quires; we must then have recourse to the watermarks. In a folio, if one leaf has a watermark, the corresponding leaf which forms the other half of the sheet has none. Again, in a quarto, corresponding leaves have either no watermark, or each half a one. Judging from the sewing and the watermarks, there is rarely any difficulty in making out the collation, the first and last quires being the most difficult to determine with accuracy; the others present no difficulty. It is thus always best to settle the arrangement of the interior quires first, and work from them to the outer ones, which are more likely to be mutilated.

This method of collation by the watermarks is very often useful for detecting made up copies. For instance, in the copy of the thirty-six line Bible in the British Museum, the first and last leaf of the first quire have each a watermark, showing absolutely that one of the two leaves (in this case the first) has been inserted from another copy.

In many old books which have been rebound, the outside pages of the quire are very much smoother and more polished than the rest, and may thus be distinguished by touch. This, though a pretty certain test, may mislead, if the book has been misbound, and should only be used in conjunction with the other methods. A little practical work will soon enable the beginner to find for himself various small points, all of which, though hardly worthy of a lengthy description, are useful in giving information, but are only useful when they have been acquired by experience.

In giving an account of a fifteenth century book, a reference should always be made to Hain’s Repertorium Bibliographicum. If Hain gives a full description, and such description is correct, it will be sufficient for all purposes to quote the number in Hain. Almost all the books fully described in that work have an asterisk prefixed to their number, that being the sign that Hain had himself collated the book; and in quoting from him the asterisk should never be omitted.

The title and colophon should always be given in extenso, the end of each line in the original being marked by an upright stroke ("). The abbreviations should be exactly copied. Notice must always be taken of blank leaves which are part of the book. The number of lines to the page, the presence or absence of signatures, all such technical minutiÆ must be noted down.

In fact, the object of a good bibliographical description is to give as clearly and concisely as possible all the information which can be derived from an examination of the book itself.

The individual history of a book is of the utmost importance, and should never be ignored. On this subject I cannot do better than quote some words of Henry Bradshaw, applicable more to manuscripts than to printed books, but which explain the writer’s careful method, and practically exhaust all that has to be said on the subject.

“These notes, moreover, illustrate the method on which I have worked for many years, the method which alone brings me satisfaction, whether dealing with printed books or manuscripts. It is briefly this: to work out the history of the volume from the present to the past; to peel off, as it were, every accretion, piece by piece, entry by entry, making each contribute its share of evidence of the book’s history backwards from generation to generation; to take note of every entry which shows either use, or ownership, or even the various changes of library arrangement, until we get back to the book itself as it left the original scriptorium or the hands of the scribe; noting how the book is made up, whether in 4-sheet, 5-sheet, or 6-sheet quires, or otherwise; how the quires are numbered and marked for the binder; how the corrector has done his work, leaving his certificate on the quire, leaf or page, or not, as the case may be; how the rubricator has performed his part; what kind of handwriting the scribe uses; and, finally, to what country or district all these pieces of evidence point.... The quiet building up of facts, the habit of patiently watching a book, and listening while it tells you its own story, must tend to produce a solid groundwork of knowledge, which alone leads to that sober confidence before which both negative assumption and ungrounded speculation, however brilliant, must ultimately fall.”