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Shipley - Glossary of bookselling and bibliographical terms Category: Hobbies and Crafts > bookselling Date & country: 30/09/2007, UK Words: 153

Aeg
All edges gilt

All Published
The book or set was never completed, or no more appeared. als. Autograph letter, signed

Antiquarian
(i) The largest size of handmade paper (53 x 31 ins or 1350 x 790 mm). (ii) Over 100 years old, or more recently (iii) Old. Antique Leather. Leather (usually calf) dyed unevenly to simulate age.

Aquatint
An Intaglio process, giving an effect, not dissimilar to a watercolour wash in finished appearance.

Art Paper
Paper with a smooth, hard surface caused by an even coating of caolin or china clay compound on one or both sides.

As Issued
In original condition

Association Copy
A book valued for its association, former ownership or provenance.

Bibliography
A listing of related books.

Black Letter
A variety of old fashioned gothic type, popular with early English printers.

Blank
A leaf or sheet without any printing.

Blind
Decoration or lettering made by plain blocking or tooling without any colour or gilding.

Blocking
Cover decoration applied in a press, usually from a metal plate.

Boards
The stiff sides of any book in hard covers.

Bookplate
(or Ex Libris) Ownership label, usually decorative, pasted to the Endpaper.

Bought In
An auction term, whereby an item did not reach its reserve, and was therefore unsold.

Bowdler
(or Bowdlerise) To remove, deface or alter words or passages that may be considered indelicate. Named after Dr. Bowdler who in 1818 issued an expurgated edition of Shakespeare. A form of censorship.

Brightbacks
Books in decorative or pictorial cloth bindings, heavy gilt or enamelled.

Broadside
(sometimes referred to as a Broadsheet). A sheet printed on one side, often polemical.

Buckram
A tough binding, of sized cloth.

Calf
The most common bookbinding leather, smooth textured and capable of taking most dyes.

Called For
Should be present in a complete copy.

Cancel
To cut out and replace a wrongly printed leaf.

Caoutchouc
An early (and unsatisfactory) method of securing single sheets by roughening the spine edges and applying a rubber cement and reinforcing with caoutchouc impregnated cloth. Popular in the middle of the nineteenth century. Possibly a forerunner to our modern perfect binding.

Cartouche
A decorative device or border used to enclose a title, name or image.

Catalogue Raisonné
The complete works, in this case by one artist.

Catchword
A word printed below the bottom line and matching the first word of the next page.

Chapbook
A small cheap booklet on popular subjects, once sold by Chapmen or street hawkers.

Chromolithograph
A lithograph printed in colour.

Cloth
Fabric covering. Widely used since about 1830.

Collation
The formal description of the make-up of the book.

Collotype
A photomechanical printing process. Printing is done from a raised gelatine film on a glass support. Used mostly in early photographs.

Colophon
Statement of publication. Details of which are usually printed at the end of a book.

Comb Binding
A method of binding using a plastic 'comb' through slots cut in the margin of the single sheets of paper. This enables the volume to be left lying flat open. see Spiral Bind.

Concertina Fold
A method of folding paper whereby each fold runs in the opposite direction to the one before, to form a pleated effect. Sometimes called an Accordion Fold or Fan Fold.

Condition
State or condition of the book.

Contemporary
Dating from the period at which the book was published.

Crushed Morocco
Morocco pressed or ironed to extreme smoothness and high polish.

Cuts
(i) Illustrations printed within the text, as opposed to plates, which are printed separately. (ii) excisions or omissions, usually made to satisfy lawyers, etc.

Dentelle
Lacelike border pattern on a binding.

Device


Dropped Title
(or Dropped Head) The title is placed at the head of the first page of text rather than on a separate title page.

Dustjacket
(or Dustwrapper, Wrapper). The publishers protective jacket, usually made of paper, introduced in the 19th century. see comment*

Edition
All copies of the book produced, at any time from the same setting of type. New impressions and reprints are technically of the same edition if neither the setting nor the process has been altered. see impression.

Endpaper
The paper lining to the inside binding. The Paste Down is pasted to the cover, the Free Endpaper protects the text.

Ephemera
Printed material of a transitory nature, technically lasting only one day.

Errata
A list of misprints, errors or omissions.

Etching
An image printed from an acid etched Intaglio plate.

Ex Library
Withdrawn from a library. With the usual rubber stamps and markings.

Ex Libris
see bookplate.

Facsimile
Exact reproduction of an original document or book, often printed by a different, and usually more economical, process.

Fep
Front endpaper.

ffep
Free front endpaper.

First Edition
All copies of a book printed from the original setting of type.

First Edition Thus
Not the original edition, but the first appearance of some new features, illustrations, revisions, etc.

Fly Leaf
The part of the endpaper that is not stuck down

Folio
A publication made up from printed sheets folded once only. The term has now become to mean any large book. see portfolio.

Font
All size of one variant of a typeface produced by a particular manufacturer.

Fore-Edge
The edge of the book parallel to the spine.

Fore-Edge Painting
An image painted on the fore-edge. Usually done while this is fanned out, becoming concealed when the volume is closed.

Foxing
Reddish brown (fox coloured) spotting caused by damp affecting the impurities in the paper.

Frontispiece
The plate facing the title page.

Gatefold
Where a page, usually illustrated, folds out to accommodate the image that is larger than the books page size.

Gathering
(see Section, and Quire). An individual group of leaves gathered together in the folding of the printed sheets.

Gauffered Edges
Gilt edges decorated with tooling.

Grangerised
see Extra Illustrated.

Guard
(i) Folding Maps, or plates, are sometimes mounted on guards, narrow strips of paper sewn into the book, to obviate sewing through the middle of the image itself. (ii) a leaf (often of tissue) inserted to protect a plate. (iii) A type of repair to the margins of individual leaves.

Gutta-Percha
(or Caoutchouc). A rubber adhesive used as an alternative to sewing.

Gutter
The two inner margins of an opened page.

Half-Binding
A binding of which only the back strip and corners are covered.

Half-Title
A leaf before the main title-page recording the title, usually without further details.

Holograph
A manuscript written entirely in the authors' own hand.

Impression
(i) All the copies of a book printed at any one time, in a single printing, from the same type. (ii) the act of printing itself, or the quality of it, especially of the plates themselves.

Imprimatur
(from the Latin, 'let it be printed'). A permission to print found in books where publishing required sanction from the relevant authority, usually the Church or State.

Imprint
Statement of names of the persons, issuing the document, usually publisher or printer, often also including date, and place of publication.

Incunabula
(from the Latin, 'swaddling clothes'). Books from the infancy of printing, usually before 1500.

India Paper
A very thin, absorbent paper, generally used for proofs of engravings or woodcuts.

Intaglio
A method of printing from an engraved metal plate, which under pressure forces the paper to accept ink from the engraved incisions in the plate rather than from the relief surface.

Japon
Imitation Japanese Vellum.

Kraft Paper
Strong brown paper made from sulphate pulp. Often used for wrapping parcels.

Laid Down
Backed with a stronger paper, or other material.

Laid Paper
Paper which shows the characteristic parallel wire marks of early papers made by hand with a wire mesh tray.

Large Paper
Special paper that is larger (and usually better) than the rest of the edition.

Levant
A highly polished, loose grained Morocco.

Library Binding
A basic or plain binding used by libraries where continual usage may cause wear to the original binding.

Limited Edition
An edition that has a restricted print run, this limitation is usually expressed as a fraction.

Linson
Paper used in binding, often grained to look like cloth or leather.

Lithograph
An image printed by lithography, a chemical method of printing (originally from stone) using the principle of the mutual repulsion of oil and water. Invented by Aloys Senefelder in 1798.

Margin
The unprinted space between the text and the edge of the page.

Marginalia
Handwritten comments made in the margin.

Mezzotint
A distinctive form of engraving, richly black and textured, in which the plate is worked from dark to light.

Miniature
Used in this context to denote books below 2ins (or 5cm) high.

Misbound
Bound in the wrong order or place.

Monograph
A publication dealing with one single artist.

Morocco
An elegant and durable goatskin much used in bookbinding, originally imported from North Africa.

Ms., Mss
Manuscript, Manuscripts.

Nd
No date.

Nd
No Date (usually of publication)

Niger
A soft goatskin with no pronounced grain.

Np
Depending on context, either, No Publisher, No Printer, or No Place (of publication).

Oasis
A smooth African goatskin, tanned and dyed in the UK.