Printers' These are the °book plates° of the publishers, used not to imply ownership of the copies, but the credit of the work. They have been treated by Berjeu in (Early Printers) (1866), by Silvestre in Typographiques> (2 vols., 1867), and there was ati old work of Roth-Scholtz (Nurem berg 1730) ; it has also been touched on by John Hill Burton in his Among them may be cited the three-masted ship of Mathis van der Goes of Antwerp, 1472-94; the windmill of Andrew Myllar, Edinburgh, 1508 and later; the curious wild men and fruit-laden tree of Thomas Davidson of Edinburgh, in 1541; the Stephenses' olive-tree, and the Elze virs' sphere. Often there is a punning allusion to the publisher's name ; Froschover (Frosch in German is frog) has frogs; Le Chandelier a seven-branched candlestick; and Nicholas Eve has a picture of Eve giving Adam the forbidden fruit. Others use instead the armorial bearings of their cities; Leeu, the castle of Antwerp; R. Hall, Geneva's half-eagle and key on a shield; Stadelberger, the lion rampant of Heidelberg, and the diapered shield of Zurich. Ascensius, 1462-1532, has a most vividly accurate represen tation of his great printing press, with a press man pulling a proof. His device bore the in scription, uPrelum Ascensianum°; and it was adopted by Josse Bade of Paris, 1501-35, who added his initials at the foot; by De Gourmont, 1507-15; Le Preux, 1561-87; and in a modified form by De Marnef, 1567, and De Roigny, 1565. The Aldi had an anchor and a dolphin, which was employed by Turrisan, De Chenney, Bril lard, Tardif and Coulombel — sometimes, as in Coulombel's case, with the divided Aldus.
'Decoration.— Besides the illustration of the text by pictures, either as frontispiece or interleaved, there are certain artistic forms which are merely decorative accessories to the book as such. The titlepage may have some of its lines or letters printed with colored •inks; the printer's emblem or sonic suitable vignette may be inserted; or even the whole title may be engraved, as often in the 16th and 17th cen turies, when it was frequently an exceedingly elaborate and costly affair, and in some modern editions-de-luxe these engraved titlepages are works of extraordinary beauty. There are also ornamental initials, as with the illuminated manuscripts; head and tail pieces, in the blank at the head of a chapter or the space left at the end. The first printers often left the initial
letters off altogether, or in a small one as a guide to the artist, who inserted them by hand, using red ink, from which he was called a rubrisher; he also used his taste in other deco rative details, being in fact the illustrative artist of the time.
Technical Terms.— The sale and collec tion of books are too large subjects to• be treated here, but a few of the names used in the second-hand book trade may be mentioned. ullJnique," °rare" and ((very rare," are intel ligible as names, but need judgment in their ac ceptance. A book may be unique because it was not worth keeping, like disused textbooks; the term does not imply any special value. Or it may be so because the original edition was limited to enhance its value, a very common device. In all such cases there must be knowl edge and sense to estimate properly the intrinsic or factitious worth of the book. °Edition') means nothing whatever; properly it should mean all the issue of a book that the publisher thinks the market will bear at one time, and once it did mean that, but it has long ceased to have any definite connotation. As above, the °edition" may be artificially limited to a small number of copies with a promise to destroy the plate; on the other hand, a popular novel may sell many thousands and each thousand be called an uedition,l) so that it may be said to have passed through 50 ueditions.° °Thousand° is the honester word, and is now more used by the larger houses. °Curious° is a euphemism for a much less dainty word. ((Foxed° means damaged by brown or yellow spots. °Uncut° does not mean that the leaves have not been opened with a paper-knife, but that the original size of the leaves has not been cropped by the binder. The French use non coupe for the former, and non rogue for the latter.
Bibliography.— Birt, Was antike Buch wesen in sesnem Verhaltnis zur Litteratur) (ib. 1893) ; Duff, (Early Printed Books' (Lon don 1893) • Pollard, 'Early Illustrated Books' (London I893) ; Madan, (Books in Manuscript' ' (ib., 1893) • Pollard, 'Early Books' (London 1893) ; Putnam, 'Authors and their Public in Ancient Times' (New York 1893) ; id., 'Books and their Makers in the Middle Ages) (ib. 1896). See also BOOKBINDING; BOOKSELLING ; PRINTING MANUSCRIPTS, ILLU MINATION OF, and consult works referred to under these titles.