Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450-1830

162 Pages·2005·30.215 MB·English

by  David McKitterick

Print, Manuscript and the Search for
Order, 1450-1830
DAVID MCKITTERICK
Fellow and Librarian
Trinity College, Cambridge
01i.-'~iijgÌüÌü
CAMBRIDGB
IN
79 "1.: IF UNIVERSITY PRESS
List of illustrations(cid:9) vii
25 Erasmus, Moriae encomium (Basel, 1676). [89]
Illustrations
26 Abraham Bosse, printing copperplates (1642). [91]
27-8 John Williams, Great Britains Salomon; a sermon preached at the
funerall of the King, James (1625). [94-5]
29-30 Franciscus de Platea, Opus restitutionum, usurarum,
excommunicationum (Paris, 1476/7). [ 103-4]
1 The Book of Job, marked up in a copy of the Bishops' Bible 31-2 Gregory I, Regula pastoralis (Cologne, not after 1471). [105-6]
(1602). [page24]
33 Gregory I, Regula pastoralis (Cologne, not after 1471). [107]
2 Andrew Maunsell, The first part of the catalogue of English bookes 34 Hieronymus Hornschuch, Orthotypographia (Leipzig,
(1595). [28]
1608). [116]
3 Thomas Smeton, Ad virulentum Archibaldi Hamiltomi Apostate 35 Michael Taylor, Tables of logarithms (1792). [125]
Dialogum (Edinburgh: John Ross, 1579). [39]
36 Pietro Sarpi, Historiae Concilii Tridentine libri octo (1620). [142]
4-5 Missale ad usum Sarum (1500). [44-5]
37 PasquilsPalinodia and his progresse (1619). [146]
6 Albrecht von Eyb, Margarita poetica, copied from the edition
38 Biblia sacra (Salamanca, 1584). [155]
printed by Ulrich Han (Rome, 1475). [49]
39 Alberico Gentili, De legationibus (1585). [158]
7 An engraving, by the Master S, of the Baptism of Christ, integrated
40 Nicolaus Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI
with a manuscript collection of private prayers (1530). [54]
(Nuremberg, 1543). [164]
8 A selection from the missal, perhaps written in Carinthia, with a
41 Frontispiece to the Universal Magazine, 1752. [174]
hand-coloured woodcut of the Crucifixion bound in. [57]
42 The interior of an eighteenth-century printing house. J. G. Ernesti,
9 Part of a sheet of woodcut devotional images designed to be cut
Die Yljol-eingerichteteBiichdriickerey (Nuremberg, 1733). [175]
up and pasted into books. [58]
43 Prosper Marchand, Histoire de l'origine et des premiers progrès de
10 An engraving of the Nativity inserted in a Utrecht breviary (Paris,
l'imprimerie (The Hague, 1740). [176]
1514). [62]
44 Speech by David Ricardo in the House of Commons, 24 May
11 A coloured and reworked engraving inserted into a manuscript
1819. [218]
book of private prayers. [65]
12-16 Livy, Historiae Romanae decades (Venice: Vindelinus de Spira,
Illustrations are reproduced by courtesy of the following: the Curators of the
1470), showing different printed and manuscript marginal
University Libraries, University of Oxford, 1, 8, 9, 12, 15, 17, 38; the Syndics
decoration. [70-4]
of Cambridge University Library, 7, 10, 13, 16, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33,
17-19 Bartolommeo dalli Sonetti, Isolario (Venice: Guilelmus Anima 34, 37, 43; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 11; Roger
Mia, Tridinensis?, c.1485). [75-7] Gaskell Esq., 26; the President and Fellows, Magdalen College, Oxford, 30;
20 Hyginus, Poeticon astronomicon (Ferrara: Augustinus Carnerius, the Warden and Fellows, New College, Oxford, 6, the Master and Fellows,
1475). [78] Trinity College, Cambridge, 2, 3, 4, 5, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 29, 35, 36, 39, 40,
44.
21 Hyginus, Poeticon astronomicon (Venice, 1482). [79]
22 Dante, Divina commedia (Florence, 1481). [83]
23-4 Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae (Ghent, 1485). [85-6]
knowledgements
c
This book is a considerably expanded version of the Lyell lectures in Bibliog-
raphy, delivered at the University of Oxford in May 2000. I am, first, grateful
to the Electors to the Lyell Readership for providing me with the stimulus
to organise the issues addressed in the following pages, and to my audience
for their contributions in discussions before and after the lectures.
In tackling so broad a subject, it is inevitable that one draws on experi-
ences of many years. There is no substitute for handling books, and thus
appreciating their physical properties, their differences, their materials, and
their appearances. The ideas for this book in a sense germinated as a re-
sult of working with the late John Oates, who introduced me to some of
the complexities of the earliest printed books. But the results of the bib-
liographical work of the late H. M. Adams, in Cambridge (England) and
Ruth Mortimer in Cambridge (Massachusetts) will be equally apparent to
the student of footnotes. It is an especial personal pleasure to acknowledge
here the benefits conferred by Katharine F. Pantzer on everyone who deals
with early printing in the British Isles, by her inspired revision of Pollard
and Redgrave's Short-title catalogue of books down to 1640. Other ideas
were reviewed and tested with the late Don McKenzie and Hugh Amory; it
is this book's misfortune that it could not benefit from the discussions that
were developing at the time of their untimely deaths.
At various points, I have shamelessly sought help, and never been dis-
appointed — even though many of those who are named here cannot have
realised the purposes of my importunities. In alphabetical order, I am there-
fore glad to thank Judy Amory, Nicolas Barker, Peter Blayney, Karen Bowen,
James Carley, Chris Coppens, Ton Croiset van Uchelen, Martin Davies, John
and Clare Drury, Mary Kay Duggan, Conor Falry, Christine Ferdinand,
Roland Folter, Paul Grinke, Craig Hartley, Lotte Hellinga, Jos Hermans,
Ted Hofmann, Arnold Hunt, Dirk Imhof, Kristian Jensen, Mayke de Jong,
the late Vivien Law, Elisabeth Leedham-Green, Richard Linenthal, Andrew
Macintosh, Ian Maclean, Linne Mooney, Paul Morgan, James Mosley, Paul
and Ruth Needham, Will Noel, Adam Perkins, Nicholas Poole-Wilson,
Dennis Rhodes, Nigel Roche, Richard and Mary Rouse, Margaret M. Smith,
Nicholas Stogdon, Michael Wyman, Mary Beth Winn and, as always, the
Acknowledgements
innumerable booksellers who have tolerated my searches of their shelves,
tables and stockrooms. Abbreviations
To the libraries where I have worked on this book, I offer my warmest
thanks, and in particular to the many fetchers and carriers of books be-
tween the stacks and the reading rooms. Most of the groundwork was car-
ried out in Trinity College, Cambridge and in Cambridge University Li-
brary. These apart, the Bodleian Library, the British Library, the Fitzwilliam
Museum and the St Bride Printing Library have all provided more than or- Adams H. M. Adams, Catalogue of books printed
dinary amounts of support, and I am grateful also to the staffs of Emmanuel on the continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in
College, Gonville and Caius College and St John's College at Cambridge, the Cambridge libraries, 2 vols. (Cambridge,
Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, the Houghton, Law and Widener 1967)
libraries at Harvard, and the Firestone Library at Princeton. I am indebted Armstrong, Renaissance Lilian Armstrong, Renaissance miniature
to the Lyell Fund for a grant towards the cost of obtaining and reproducing miniature painters painters and classical imagery; the Master of
the illustrations. the Putti and his Venetian workshop (198 1)
I have been greatly encouraged in this project by the help and example
BMC Catalogue of books printed in the XVth
of Paul Needham, who has steered me through many difficulties and has
century now in the British Museum
read much of the book in an earlier form. The mistakes are, of course, my
(1908— ), reprinted 1963
own. For daily succour of all kinds, both for the contents of this book and
Condello and de Gregorio, E. Condello and G. de Gregorio (eds.),
for more ordinary practicalities, I remain, as always, most thankful of all to
Scribi e colofoni Scribi e colofoni; le sottoscrizioni di copisti
my wife Rosamond.
dalle origini all'avento della stampa
(Spoleto, 1995)
DAVID MCKITTERICK
Contemporaries of Erasmus Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas
B. Deutscher (ed.), Contemporaries of
Erasmus, 3 vols. (Toronto, 1985-7)
Darlow and Moule T. H. Darlow and H. R Moule, Historical
catalogue of the printed editions of Holy
Scripture in the library of the British and
Foreign Bible Society, 2 vols. (1903)
Davies, Incunabula Martin Davies (ed.), Incunabula; studies in
fifteenth-century printed books presented to
Lotte Hellinga (1999)
De Bujanda, Index des J. M. de Bujanda (ed.), Index des livres
livres interdits interdits, 10 vols. (Sherbrooke, 1985-96)
DNB Dictionary of national biography
Dreyfus, Aspects John Dreyfus, Aspects of French
eighteenth century typography (Roxburghe
Club, 1982)
xii(cid:9) List of abbreviations(cid:9) List of abbreviations(cid:9) xiii
E. G. Duff, Fifteenth century English books; Hindman, Printing Sandra Hindman (ed,), Printing the
a bibliography (Bibliographical Soc., 1917) written word: the social history of books,
Dutschke, Huntington C. W. Dutschke, et al., Guide to medieval circa 1450-1520 (Ithaca, NY, 1991)
and renaissance manuscripts in the Hindman and Farquhar, Sandra Hindman and James Douglas
Huntington Library, 2 vols. (San Marino, Pen to press Farquhar, Pen to press; illustrated
1989) manuscripts and printed books in the first
Eisenstein, Printing press Elizabeth Eisenstein, The printing press as century of printing (College Park, Md.,
an agent of change, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1977)
1979) Hollstein, Dutch and E W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish
Erasmus, Works Desiderius Erasmus, Collected works, in Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts,
English, ed. R. J. Schoeck, et al. (Toronto, ca. 1450-1700 (Amsterdam, 1949— )
1974—) Hollstein, German F. W. H. Hollstein, Hollstein s German
Fairfax Murray, German H. W. Davies, Catalogue of a collection of engravings, etchings and woodcuts,
early German books in the library of C. 1400-1700 (Amsterdam, 1954—)
Fairfax Murray, 2 vols. (1913) Hunt catalogue Jane Quinby and Allan Stevenson,
Gaskell, New introduction Philip Gaskell, A new introduction to Catalogue of botanical books in the
bibliography (Oxford, 1972, repr. with collection of Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt,
corrections, 1974) 2 vols. in 3 (Pittsburgh, 1958-61)
GJ Gutenberg Jahrbuch IGI Indice generale degli incunaboli delle
biblioteche d'Italia, 6 vols. (Rome,
Goff F. R. Goff, Incunabula in American
1943-81)
libraries; a third census (New York, 1964),
repr. from the annotated copy maintained ILC Gerard van Thienen and John Goldfinch
by E R. Goff (Millwood, NY, 1973) (eds.), Incunabula printed in the Low
Countries; a census (Nieuwkoop, 1999)
Goldgar, Impolite learning Anne Goldgar, Impolite learning, conduct
and community in the republic of letters, Johns, Nature of the book Adrian Johns, The nature of the book; print
1650-1750 (New Haven, 1995) and knowledge in the making (Chicago,
1998)
Greetham, Textual D. C. Greetham, Textual scholarship; an
scholarship introduction, corrected reprint (New York, JPHS Journal of the Printing Historical Society
1994) Landau and Parshall, David Landau and Peter Parshall, The
GW Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (Leipzig Renaissance print renaissance print, 1470-1559 (New Haven,
etc., 1925—) 1994)
Hellinga, Copy and print Wytze Gs. Hellinga, Copy and print in the Love, Scribal publication Harold Love, Scribal publication in
Netherlands; an atlas of historical seventeenth-century England (Oxford,
bibliography (Amsterdam, 1962) 1993); repr. as The culture and commerce of
texts (Amherst, Mass., 1998)
Herbert T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule, Historical
catalogue of printed editions of the English
Bible, 1525-1961, rev. A. S. Herbert (1968)
(cid:9) List of abbreviations(cid:9) List of abbreviations(cid:9) xv
xi-11
McKitterick, Cambridge David McKitterick, A history of Cambridge Richardson, Renaissance Brian Richardson, Printing, writers and
University Press, I University Press, 1, Printing and the book Italy readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge,
trade in Cambridge, 1534-1698 1999)
(Cambridge, 1992) Robinson, Dated and Pamela Robinson, Catalogue of dated and
McKitterick, Cambridge David McKitterick, A history of Cambridge datable datable manuscripts, c.737-1600, in
University Press, II University Press, II, Scholarship and Cambridge libraries, 2 vols. (Cambridge,
Commerce, 1698-1872 (Cambridge, 1998) 1988)
Mortimer, French Ruth Mortimer, Harvard College Library, Rosenthal, Manuscript Bernard M. Rosenthal, The Rosenthal
Department of Printing and Graphic Art; annotations collection of printed books with manuscript
catalogue of books and manuscripts, I, annotations (Beinecke Rare Book and
French 16th century books, 2 vols. Manuscript Library) (New Haven, 1997)
(Cambridge, Mass., 1964) Schäfer Katalog Manfred von Arnim, Katalog der Bibliothek
Mortimer, Italian Ruth Mortimer, Harvard College Library, Otto Schäfer, Schweinfurt, I, Drucke,
Department of Printing and Graphic Art; Manuskripte und Einbände des XV.
catalogue of books and manuscripts, II, Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1984)
Italian 16th century books, 2 vols. SB Studies in Bibliography
(Cambridge, Mass., 1974)
Simpson, Proof-reading Percy Simpson, Proof-reading in the
Moxon, Mechanick Joseph Moxon, Mechanick exercises of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth
exercises whole art of printing, ed. Herbert Davis centuries (Oxford, 1935)
and Harry Carter, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1962)
SIC A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, A
Nichols, Literary John Nichols, Literary anecdotes of the short-title catalogue of books printed in
-
Anecdotes eighteenth century, 9 vols. (1812 16) England, Scotland, & Ireland, and of
Oates J. C. T. Oates, A catalogue of the English books printed abroad, 1475-1640,
fifteenth-century printed books in the 2nd edn, revised by William A. Jackson,
University Library, Cambridge F. S. Ferguson and Katharine E Pantzer,
(Cambridge, 1954) with a chronological index by Philip
R. Rider, 3 vols. (Bibliographical Soc.,
PBSA Papers of the Bibliographical Society of
1976-91)
America
Philip, Bodleian Library I. G. Philip, The Bodleian Library in the TCBS Transactions of Cambridge Bibliographical
Society
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
(Oxford, 1983) Voet, Golden compasses Leon Voet, The golden compasses, 2 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1969-72)
Polain (B) M. L. Polain, Catalogue des livres imprimés
au quinzième siècle des bibliothèques de Wormald and Giles, Francis Wormald and Phyllis M. Giles,
Belgique, 5 vols. (Brussels, 1979) Fitzwilliam A descriptive catalogue of the additional
manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Rhodes, Bookbindings D. E. Rhodes (ed.), Bookbindings and other
2 vols. (Cambridge, 1982)
bibliophily; essays in honour ofAnthony
Hobson (Verona, 1994)
All books are published in London, unless stated otherwise.
The printed word and the modern bibliographer
I
In 1968, the late Harry Carter opened his Lyell lectures with words that have
come to haunt a generation born since and for whom letterpress printing is
a defunct technology. `Type is something you can pick up and hold in your
hand.' As his next sentence went on to reveal, he had in mind bibliographers,
and especially those bibliographers whose ingenuity led them to forget this
fundamental and material fact. To many bibliographers, and thus to histori-
ans and literary scholars, type is an abstraction, that leaves its mark on paper
but that has no other existence. It was perhaps no coincidence among the
preoccupations of the late 1960s that D. E McKenzie's vigorously corrective
paper on `Printers of the mind; some notes on bibliographical theories and
printing-house practices' was published only a few months after Carter's
lectures, though it had been first written several years previously.'
It is appropriate also to recall some of the other developments in printing
during the year 1968, a period when phototypesetting and computer appli-
cations seemed to offer the brightest future, and were certainly displacing
metal at a speed whose pace was significantly increased by the activities of the
Compugraphic Corporation. In that year, the VDU was first applied to cor-
recting phototypesetting, and Her Majesty's Stationery Office was putting
the finishing touches to computer typesetting for telephone directories. The
first authoritative books to deal with automated composition were begin-
ning to appear.2 Not just for bibliographers, the word `type' which Harry
Carter understood in so tactile and corporeal a manner, was rapidly taking
on a new two-dimensional meaning.
These developments were pursued with an extraordinary concentration
of effort, in a fiercely competitive environment. Yet photosetting, the basis
of so much investment by printers at the time, and which seemed to offer
the answer to so many needs, proved to be only a partial solution. Computer
typesetting has brought a social as well as a technological revolution that
for the first time has (for those who wish it) given authors direct control at
their desks over the final printed appearance of their books.
During the last two decades or so, we have become accustomed to speaking
or writing of `printers' not as people, but as machines made of plastic, metal
and other substances that sit on our desks: machines driven at least one
(cid:9) (cid:9)
Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450-1830 The printed word and the modern bibliographer 3
remove from ourselves via the computer, keyboard and screen that now xpectations in authors, manufacturers and readers alike. Inevitably, as past
e
form parts of our daily lives. In similar linguistic fashion, in the eighteenth everyday practice comes to require conscious study, so its own rationale
century the Royal Observatory at Greenwich employed people who were slips gradually away. The purpose of historical bibliography is to recover
referred to as computers. At the end of the nineteenth century, the people and interpret past practice. As happens in many other fields of research, its
we now know as typists were referred to as typewriters. Such changes of usage considerable success in measuring materiality has not always kept pace with
come about almost by accident, but they have their roots in a mechanical discovering not just purpose and meaning, but also the inconsequential and
assumption: that the printer or typewriter, human or otherwise, is an agent incidental vitality that distinguishes human activity.
of reproduction, of reproducing our thoughts, words and images — usually
but not always on paper. At a time when we also face changes in what we mean bybooks, and therefore
There is perhaps something a little foolhardy in attempting to tackle find ourselves challenged for better definitions, the following chapters are
so potentially large a subject as what past generations have understood by designed to enquire into a few of the assumptions by which we have lived for
printing; but I have been moved to do so for several reasons. the past five hundred and more years. They question, from several points
First, it has become even more difficult today for many people to grasp of view, what Paul Eggert has referred to as `the illusion that imaginative
what Harry Carter, a printer trained in letterpress, understood by instinct: activity gives rise in almost every case to a stable textual product,' and by
that for almost four centuries the vast majority of books, periodicals, news- considering what is meant by printing they seek to extend this argument
papers, advertisements and all kinds of other printed matter were printed by into new territories.
means of machines and equipment, metal and wood, controlled and made So as to bring some order into so large a question, I have selected a number
to work by hand, and that metal type was fundamental to most printing for of different but related issues. Some of these have been aired before, in greater
well over five centuries.3 detail and often bypeople with more knowledge than I can bring here. Others
Second, the technology of which he spoke has now almost entirely dis- will be less familiar. But by assembling such a group of questions I hope to
appeared, in a world where even the basic words in the vocabulary, `type, show how assumptions about the apparent authority of print, the reality of
`printer; `print' or `screen' have quite different meanings today from those its creation, and the combination of conservatism with a creative training
they held until the late twentieth century. in readers, may be questioned, in order that we may better understand
Third, and a little more subtly, the dichotomy identified by Harry Carter, the expectations that have underlain a principal means of communication.
between type and its mark, compositor and bibliographer, has had a deeper Accordingly, I shall be exploring the relationship between manuscript and
effect on our understanding of the history of the printed word and image print as it emerged in the creation and management of knowledge and ideas
than even he may have appreciated. Modern bibliography and historical during roughly the first 350 years after the invention in the west of printing
practice have tended constantly to project the values and judgements of the from movable types; some aspects of the relationship between print and
present back to the values and practices of the past. Much contemporary bib- manuscript in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a period in which
liographical practice (I plead indulgence for a term that now has to stretch _ frequently find less a revolution than an accommodation; the ways in
`A
into the last century but one) traces its history from a period on the thresh- which printing, ars artium conservatri, was not so much compromised as
old of the peak of letterpress printing: the application of the Monotype, extended and even partly defined by the employment of older techniques
Linotype and other sophisticated equipment to machine composition; the having their roots in the manuscript tradition; some — but by no means
engineering triumphs of printing machines by Robert Hoe, Robert Miehle all — of the ways in which printing was seen not so much as an end as a
and others; and the application of photography to printing as a daily routine beginning in the presentation of texts; some of the ways in which printing,
in blockmaking for illustration.' seemingly so final and therefore authoritative a statement, was liable to
The process of technological change is, usually, easily monitored. It is less readjustment between printer and reader; the ways in which readers are
straightforward to comprehend new procedures, new technical possibilities, themselves expected to take a part in the process of typographical creation,
and new structures for the organisation of time, where processes have differ- and something of the extent to which the lapse of time impinges on the
ent paces relative to each other: education in all of these affects attitudes and purposes of printing, publication and reading. In each of these differently
4(cid:9) Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450-1830(cid:9) The printed word and the modern bibliographer (cid:9) 5
angled views, brief and impressionistic though their treatment has to be, ssociated industries took time to become established as ordinary practice.
a
we shall discover how the concept, as well as the act, of printing is not hand press survived in commercial use until the second half of
The iron
necessarily one of fixity, of textual rest or (still less) of stability, but actually the twentieth century, in the shape of Albions, Columbians and a host of
implies a process liable and subject to change as a result both of its own other nineteenth-century iron presses, all worked manually and at not vastly
mechanisms and of the assumptions and expectations of those who exploit greater speed than the old wooden or common press.
its technological possibilities to greater or lesser extent. The focus in this book is deliberately on western Europe, rather than
While we speak today, using radical and dramatic vocabulary, of a printing on Britain, though — particularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth
just
revolution, it was apparent from the mid-fifteenth century onwards, and centuries — I shall have more to say on what will for most readers be the
perhaps especially to the generations born after about 1470, that innovations mare familiar ground of this country. I have chosen to cast so wide a net
in printing were gradual: that both in its technical achievements and in its in order to bring evidence to bear on questions that, whether they were
social (including religious and political) consequences it was not invariably acknowledged or not, were of common import. The obvious disadvantage
appropriate to speak of rapid transformation. Just as the wooden printing of such a dispersed approach is that it risks too much abbreviation. But
press itself was gradually adapted and improved, illustration techniques against that, and far outweighing it, is the advantage of reminding ourselves
were applied to books with more or less success (the process was by no of the commonwealth of print, whether expressed in terms of authorship,
means one of uniform advance), typefounding was an evolving technology, manufacture, distribution or readership. The international nature of the
whose processes and organisation were adapted to an international market book obliges us to take sG-h an approach. Although there were sundry dif-
of printers and readers, so, too, the effects of letterpress printing were felt ferences in practice between various parts of Europe in this period, there
differently by different parts of the community. The Fifth Lateran Council, was also much that was held in common. Workmen took their skills from
in the second decade of the sixteenth century, is now often remembered country to country (Germany to Italy and France in the fifteenth century;
for its attempts to control printing. But the choice of words of the decree France and the Rhine valley to England in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
Super impressione librorum reveals not only an acknowledgement of the turies; the Netherlands to England in the seventeenth century; France to
power of the press for good (the spread of scholarly study) as well as for ill. the Netherlands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for example).
It also explicitly addresses this sense of progressive technological as well as Type-founding and paper-making were international businesses. From the
social change. Ars imprimendi libros temporibus potissimum nostris divino 1450s onwards, printed books were international objects of merchandise,
favente numine, inventa seu aucta et perpolita.' `The skill of book-printing and therefore of reading.
has been invented, or rather improved and perfected, with God's assistance, My examples have intentionally been drawn from a range of differ-
particularly in our time.'6 ent kinds of literature — scientific, historical, geographical, musical and
Chronologically, most of my discussion will fall before the introduction of pictorial — as well as what we conventionally call literature itself. The rea-
machine-printing in the nineteenth century. There is another volume to be sons for this are twofold. Firstly, the bibliographical study of books and other
written on the industrialised book, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, printed documents, of texts and of images, has to do with the manipulation
and with one important exception in chapter 8 I shall have relatively little of alpha-numeric signs or of pictures as they are applied by compositors,
to say about this period. I wish to concentrate very largely on issues of printers, proof-readers and others in a host of different environments. Sec-
stability, as they were conceived and as they were in practice, and as the ondly, those signs will be used bythe same compositors, pressmen and others
concept was exploited, between the mid-fifteenth century and the beginning involved in the recreation and reproduction of texts: not just for `literary'
of the nineteenth. This period has become defined mainlyby reference to the texts — poems, plays, novels etc. — but also for whatever other forms of writ-
wooden hand press, or common press, even though it was, in fact, one replete ing and images require to be set or printed. Thirdly, I believe that by seeking
with complexities of technological and material kinds in no way reflected to understand the purposes of illustration, and the artistic and technical
by this quite unrepresentative flag of intellectual convenience.' As for the conventions, opportunities and restrictions of illustrative reproduction, we
closing date of the era with which this book is concerned, this is itself only may also reconcile in a more satisfactory way our understanding of different
approximate, in that a combination of developments in the printing and forms of print.
(cid:9) (cid:9) (cid:9)
6 Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450-1830 The printed word and the modern bibliographer 7
In purposely embracing many forms of literature, and seeking a common to be observed in some generations, that we may identify by historical or
goal, it will be seen that I part company, in some respects, with those who critical criteria. But the principles survive these changes; indeed, the means
prefer to restrict themselves to what are generally, and often inhospitably, and process of their survival help us to establish their nature.
referred to as literary works. In his essay already referred to, for example, In all this, we shall be exploring the interaction between the everyday
Paul Eggert restricted himself to `literary works' remarking that they `usually realities and compromises of human experience and the possibilities of
consist of multiple, often competing, texts;s even though the same might mechanical reproduction. Thereby, we shall be facing some of the same issues
be said for other forms as well. Jerome J. McGann in his discussion of `The that challenge us with each computer-based reworking of the relationship
rationale of hypertext; limited his treatment more precisely still between author, meaning and reading.
The poet's view of text is necessarily very different. To the imagination the materiali-
In these contexts, it is also necessary to consider how bibliographical un-
ties of text (oral, written, printed, electronic) are incarnational not vehicular forms.
derstanding must be sought not exclusively in the material, social and other
But for the scientist and scholar, the media of expression are primarily conceptual
economic conditions of manufacture and commerce —what we may call the
utilities, means rather than ends, to the degree that an expressive form hinders the
traditional skills of historical and textual bibliography— but also something
conceptual goal (whether it be theoretical or practical), to that extent one will seek
of how it is affected by the course of time. With some notable exceptions, this
to evade or supersede it — perhaps even, in critical times, to develop new intellectual
devices.9 extra dimension, of time, is underestimated or ignored by many who have
written about the creation of a book in the printing house. D. E McKenzie
I find it difficult to divorce discussion of the poet's understanding of the and Peter Blayney have both demonstrated, the one from surviving docu-
materialities of text from those of other authors. Indeed there are, and mentary records and the other from a detailed typographical examination
have been, many poets from the Greek Bucolic poets onwards, who have of books for whose timetable of production the evidence is otherwise some-
exploited visual forms as a part of their meanings.i0 Among current critical what thin, how crucial is the relationship of one taskto another, and therefore
preoccupations, one might cite Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman. Yet other how much we need to understand the relative durations of chronological
authors work likewise, in their division of text into chapters or paragraphs, processes." McKenzie's work appeared as long ago as 1966; yet it is still pos-
or in the care they take over their illustrations, or in the way that they sible to find uncritical and incautious assumptions about the often messy
dispose their subject-matter between the larger type of primary parts and reality of running a printing house. The printing of a book may take a few
the smaller types of footnotes or sidenotes, or in their anxiety at their choices weeks, or it may take many years. The first volume of Roger Long's Astron-
of publisher or in their opinions as to the prices of their books. All these omy, announced in 1730 and printed privately in Cambridge, was published
are in some sense `incarnational' in that they directly affect the birth of the in 1742; but the second, in train for much of the remainder of his life, was not
book for the reader, and hence markets for anticipated sales, and (finally) completed until 1785 — fifteen years after his death." This is by no means
the reader's response. Moreover, and despite a vocal minority, for whom the a phenomenon unfamiliar to the twentieth century. It took twenty years
visual impact of poetry is as important as its alphabet-based content, there is to print Strickland Gibson's edition of the old statutes of the University of
little in most contemporary commercially published poetry to suggest that Oxford, published in 1931.13
poets retain a distinctive `incarnational' influence over the finer points of I have, however, a different chronological sequence in mind. Perceptions
typography, paper, format or binding. of books change with time; and with them there change also our ways
Although I have drawn most examples from about three-and-a-half cen- of using and looking at books. I think not only of bibliophile fashions,
turies, the disciplines of historical bibliography have a general bearing on on which there is a large if often somewhat uncritical literature. Rather,
the western history of reading that command an influence permeating — not I wish to draw attention to how the trade in, and manufacture of, new
merely affecting — the whole of that subject. We may perceive examples in books may be influenced by the past; how books may change their sta-
detail; but their general lessons have also to be observed. As will be seen in tus even before they are sold for the first time (and have not yet survived
the later parts of this book, there are differences in direction and in priorities long enough to be accorded the attentions of collectors, antiquaries and