W. Roberts

London: George Bell & Sons, York Street,
Covent Garden, & New York. Mdcccxciij.

CHISWICK PRESS: C.WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE.

decoration

PREFACE.

THERE are few phases of typography open to the charge of being neglected. An unquestionable exception occurs, however, in relation to Printers’ Marks. This subject is in many respects one of the most interesting in connection with the early printers, who, using devices at first purely as trade marks for the protection of their books against the pirate, soon began to discern their ornamental value, and, consequently, employed the best available artists to design them. Many of these examples are of the greatest bibliographical and general interest, as well as of considerable value in supplementing an important class of illustrations to the printed books, and showing the origin of several typical classes of Book-plates (Ex-Libris). The present Handbook has been written with a view to supplying a readable but accurate account of this neglected chapter in the history of art and bibliography; and it appeals with equal force to the artist or collector. Only one book on the subject, Berjeau’s “Early Dutch, German, and English Printers’ Marks,” has appeared in this country, and this, besides being out of print and expensive, is destitute of descriptive letterpress. The principle which determined the selection of the illustrations is of a threefold character: first, the importance of the printer; secondly, the artistic value or interest of the Mark itself; and thirdly, the geographical importance of the city or town in which the Mark first appeared.

Since the text of this book was printed, however, two additions have been made to the literature of its subject: Dr. Paul Kristeller’s “Die Italienischen Buchdrucker- und Verlegerzeichen, bis 1525,” avery handsome work, worthy to rank with the “ElsÄssische BÜchermarken bis Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts” of Herr Paul Heitz and Dr. Karl A.Barack (to whom I am indebted for much valuable information as well as for nearly thirty illustrations in the chapter on German Printers’ Marks); and Mr. Alfred Pollard’s “Early Illustrated Books,” an admirable volume which, however, only deals incidentally with the Printer’s Mark as a side issue in the history of the decoration and illustration of books in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Mr. Pollard reproduces seven blocks from Dr. Kristeller’s monograph on the Devices of the Italian Printers. In reference to the statement on p.116 of this volume that the Mark of Bade “is the earliest picture of a printing press,” Mr. Pollard refers to an unique copy of an edition of the “Danse Macabre” printed anonymously at Lyons in February, 1499, eight years earlier, which contains cuts of the shops of a printer and a bookseller.