The Invention of Printing.: A Collection of Facts and Opinions, Descriptive of Early Prints and Playing Cards, the Block-Books of the Fifteenth Century, the Legend of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the Work of John Gutenberg and His AssociatesDe Vinne, Theodore Low
History
The Invention of Printing.: A Collection of Facts and Opinions, Descriptive of Early Prints and Playing Cards, the Block-Books of the Fifteenth Century, the Legend of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the Work of John Gutenberg and His Associates
De Vinne, Theodore Low
Incunabula -- Bibliography; Printing -- History -- Origin and antecedents
and, perhaps, by a process different from that employed in printing
the pictures. The two pages that appear on the same sheet were printed
together, as may be inferred from their irregularities; if one page is
out of register, or out of square, its mated page is out of register to
the same degree. The engravings were printed [p271] before the types,
as is clearly proved by the discovery that on some pages the types
slightly overlap the cuts.[135]
The _Second Edition_ is in Latin, and is like the first, with this odd
exception: twenty pages of the text are printed from engraved blocks of
wood. These xylographic pages are distributed in irregular order, as if
by accident, as will be shown by the italic figures, which represent
these pages, in the following table.
First Second Third Fourth Fifth
Section Section of Section of Section of Section of
of Six Fourteen Fourteen Fourteen Sixteen
Leaves. Leaves. Leaves. Leaves. Leaves.
–5 . _6–19_. 20–33 34–47 48–63
1–4 . _7–18_. ._21–32_. 35–46 49–62
2–3 8–17 ._22–31_. 36–45 50–61
. _9–16_. 23–30 37–44 ._51–60_.
._10–15_. 24–29 38–43 52–59
._11–24_. 25–28 39–42 53–58
._12–13_. ._26–27_. 40–41 54–57
55–56
It should be noticed that the xylographic pages, as well as the
typographic pages, are always found in couples. The types are those of
the first edition, but there are [p272] variations in the composition
and spelling of words, which prove that they must have been recomposed
for this edition.
The _Third Edition_ is in Dutch prose. The types are like those of the
previous editions, with the exception of pages 49 and 60, which are
printed in types of a smaller body. The face of the smaller types has
all the peculiarities of the types of the earlier editions, and is
apparently the work of the same letter-cutter. In the few known copies
of this edition there are differences in typographic arrangement which
show that types were altered between the first and the last impression.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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