THE PRINTED BOOK,
Its History, Illustration, and Adornment,
_FROM THE DAYS OF GUTENBERG TO THE
PRESENT TIME._
BY
HENRI BOUCHOT,
OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY, PARIS.
_Translated and Enlarged by_
EDWARD C. BIGMORE.
WITH ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS OF FACSIMILES
OF EARLY TYPOGRAPHY, PRINTERS' MARKS, COPIES OF BOOK
ILLUSTRATIONS, AND SPECIMENS OF BINDINGS OF ALL AGES.
NEW YORK:
SCRIBNER AND WELFORD,
743 and 745, BROADWAY.
1887.
PREFACE.
Considering that this short study can claim to be nothing more than a
rapid and somewhat summary survey of the history of THE BOOK, it eschews
all controversial matter, nor does it pretend to convey much fresh
information to those already possessing a special knowledge of the
subject. It is rather a condensed, but at the same time, it may be
hoped, a useful, compendium of the thousand unknown or now forgotten
essays, involving endless contradictory statements, that have been
issued on this theme. The mere enumeration of such works would simply
suffice to fill a volume. We have accordingly no intention to attempt a
bibliography, satisfying ourselves with the modest avowal of having
found so many documents in all languages, that the very abundance has
been at least as embarrassing to us as the lack of materials may have
been to others.
The Book appealing in its present form to a special public interested
more in artistic than in purely typographical topics, our attention has
been more particularly given to the illustrators, the designers,
engravers, etchers, and so forth. Such graphic embellishment seemed to
us of more weight than the manufacture of the paper, the type-casting,
the printing properly so called. This technical aspect of the subject
has been very briefly dealt with in a separate chapter, and has also
been enlarged upon in the early section. To the binding also we have
devoted only a single chapter, while fully conscious that a whole volume
would not have sufficed merely to treat the subject superficially.
At the same time, we would not have the reader conclude from all this
that our book abounds in omissions, or has overlooked any important
features. The broad lines, we trust, have been adhered to, while each
section has been so handled as to give a fair idea of the epoch it deals
with. This is the first attempt to comprise within such narrow limits an
art and an industry with a life of over four centuries, essaying to
describe its beginnings and its history down to our days, without
omitting a glance at the allied arts.
The engravings selected for illustration have, as far as possible, been
taken from unedited materials, and have been directly reproduced by
mechanical processes, while fifteen new illustrations, having special
relation to the history of the Book in England, have been added to this
edition, which is also considerably enlarged in the text on the same
subject.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
14.. TO 1462 1
Origin of the Book--Engravers in relief--The St. Christopher of
1423--Origin of the Xylographs--The Xylographs, _Donatus_, and
_Speculum_--The Laurent Coster legend--From block books to movable
characters--John Gaensefleisch, called Gutenberg--The Strasbourg
trial--Gutenberg at Mayence--Fust and Schoeffer--The letters of
indulgence--The Bible--The "Catholicon"--The Mayence Bible--Causes of
the dispersion of the first Mayence printers--General considerations.