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THE STOA COLLECTION Reseach note #1 IMPLICATIONS OF THE BOOKTITLE ON THE EXTERIOR OF THE BOOK. With sidepaths on economics of the trade and the taste of the public. One major topic
of the collection is Calculation. On the other hand there are also sections
Nietzscheana, Casanoviana, German and Dutch literature and many others, being
presently in total 1.600 titles all
fully described and arranged by section and year of publication as
appropriate. Apart from this subject-oriented approach, it also was tried to
include copies in the collection, that together give an interesting
illustration of other aspects of antiquarian books. In this note it
is tried to arrange and describe copies in the collection relevant to the
title of this research paper. The arrangement could be suggestive, however it
is felt, that this note is just a beginning of phrasing any final conclusions
on the material selected, for which the input of other scholars is
encouraged. Also this first
note is an experiment in digital communication. A preliminary impression is,
that the number of illustrations [all in colour] is extremely difficult to
negotiate with an editor in the printed press. Any reactions
are more than welcome at djvanham@xs4all.nl
. BOOKTITLE is such a
stated other aspect. Before 1600 books
were stored on the bookshelf with the fore-edges upfront, as can be seen on
this picture of Calvin in his study.
This must be
around 1550. It cannot be
seen on the picture how Calvin could see what the content of his books were.
A copy from the collection [book #74198] shows a solution to this problem by
writing the title on the fore-edge.
It is from a
copy of Tunstall, De Arte Supputandi, 1522 [book #74198] being an early
instruction in the basics of calculation, in those years a quite high level
topic. In later years
it was thought, that having the books on shelf with the spine upfront was
more practical, the fore-edge being a difficult and uneven surface for
writing a the title on it. And so is it until today on all private bookshelves. Aspects of titles in the booktrade There are also
other purposes than identifying a book on a bookshelf, that especially are
relevant in the booktrade. Halftitle Unbound books
[as often traded before 1800] could more easily be identified by a halftitle
on A1 recto. Stubs In some 18th
century books a stub can be found at the rpep, of which the following is an
example:
Book # 01249 [actual size] 1 This book
[1764] was acquired in a lot of 6, all books having a stub like this.
Evidently the former owner collected such things. The stub only can be
understood, when once it continued as a tape out of the head of the book. The
title being written on the tape, books could then be easily identified from
for instance a narrow case of a travelling salesman, only the heads showing. In another copy
from this lot the tape is partly conserved and an identification number is
written on it:
Upper board After 1850 the
title often was shown on the upper board as well. This has no practical
purpose on a bookshelf, however for exposition in shops the much larger
surface of the upper board is a more effective tool of introductory
communication with a potential buyer than the narrow spine. The book then
should be shown with the upper board up on a shelf or table, as still can be
seen in modern bookshops. A late example
is [
The major
innovation applied in binding a book like this is case binding, manufacturing
the binding in a separate productionrun and than joining it with the
bookblock.
The
illustration is from Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography,
1972, where it illustrates a chapter on edition binding on pp. 231-34.
However in binding books like this the full technical potential of advanced
binding machinery from around 1850 was not used. Integrated binding machines In this
advanced machinery all steps of the binding process were integrated, however this made it only
cost effective for batches of 1000 copies or even more. An early
example is Friedrich Bodenstedt, Die Lieder des Mirza-Schaffy, 2nd
edition 1853:
Helwig (p. 254)
mentions C W Vogt [ Sales were
still uncertain however when planning the 1st edition. Possibly as
a result of that there is a privately bound copy of that edition in the
collection [book # 43863], evidently coming from a cheap wrappered batch. It further
is worth noting, that the 177 copies of this title offered in trade in 2007
on ZVAB [the major German antiquarian website] do not include any wrappered
or privately bound copies, suggesting, that they just do not exist after the
rare 1st edition. A later [1897]
example of such a birthday-present category edition is:
This is really
state of the art design for that year. It is extensively discussed by
Buddensieg from a history of art point of view. From a
publishing point of view it is important to note, that also here steady sales
were more or less certain. The title was printed and published by Naumann in 1897 2000 1898 2000 1899 2000 1900 2000 1901 3000 1902 4000 1903 4000 1906 4000 1907 4000 More risky titles However for the
majority of literary and scientific titles sales to be realized were much
less certain. To get an
impression of the composition of the contemporary costprice of a book, the
following is extracted from production records of Routledge Kegan Paul [1922,
for the detailed record see below]. [Amounts are GBP1922] Typesetting 65 Printing
14 Paper
17 Other 6 Total 102 As type is too
expensive and heavy to stay over to print a second edition it was usually
discomposed after completing the 1st printing. Thus the cost
of the only really fixed cost
component typesetting should be fully allocated to the 1st edition. A larger size of the printrun then
results in a lower price per copy. However the additional variable cost of
Printing and Paper and the risk not to sell printed material in the end
counterbalance this effect. As a result publishers for more risky titles
usually arrive at a printrun of 1000-2000 copies. The edition of
our example consisted of 1500 copies. Binding all those would amount to an
additional expense of approx. GBP 50, thus a relatively large investment and
a major costprice component in the ultimate calculation of the publisher. Interlude on profit margin The sales price
of our example was 10’/6”, of which 40% usually went to the bookseller. Thus
a total revenue of 472 remains for the publisher. Not bad on 152 cost. Risk reducing solutions For the
production of printed sheets a quite large edition is unavoidable. However for the
later stages of production of a book risk-reducing solutions are shown in the
production process. Examples: Binding in smaller batches than printing text For binding
however also much simpler machinery was in use than those of the integrated
type discussed above. A series of smaller machines for the separate stages of
the production process allowed smaller production batches. The sacrifice
of a higher costprice per copy as a result of a less efficient production
process was compensated by reduction of risk, the binding and related cost
being postponed to the moment, that a potential buyer was almost at the door. The typical
size of such a smaller batch is not known. In letters
exchanged between Leo Simons and the publishers Fisher Unwin [now at NYPL]
Simons tried to find a solution for problems between the publisher and a
binder. Simons remarks that a binding run of 25 copies ordered is too small
is of interest here. So it should be more in view of the efficiency of the
binder. A similar type
of binding was done in The publishers
stock of the Dutch author Multatuli was auctioned in 1880. Like in the
Naumann inventory this stock was only partially bound. Of the 7 volumes of
Multatuli’s Ideen the largest number of copies stated in the catalog of the
auction [only copy known now in the Multatulimuseum, So binding
batches suggested by those examples possibly vary from 50-200, and are
certainly much smaller than a usual printing batch of 1000-2000. Gaskell labels
the practice secondary binding. The examples show, that it was practised not
only in the Later copies
can sometimes be identified by publisher ads added with a date later than
that on title. An extreme example is a copy in the collection of a title in
the RKP Ogden Series, being Rignano, Biological Memory [book #23492], which
has 1926 on title and Dustjackets Possibly the
underlying idea is, that a jacket can simply be printed, thus realising the
economies of text, and printing it in an according large batch. See the
Production Ledger of a volume of Ogden Series described below. Gaskell p. 250
remarks that decline of pictorial casing and the evolution of jackets occurred
simultaneously 1890-1907. Rosner
summarizes early examples, the oldest being from around 1900. however in the
collection are even earlier copies: Heine Romanzero,
1851. Wrappers A different
solution to reduce economic risk is to reduce the cost of the primary binding
itself. Also simplifying this binding has as additional advantage, that the
publisher can eliminate the binder from the production process, replacing him
by a low qualified clerk or possibly his wife or older children. Gaskell [p.
248] discusses wrappers, and from his words we can conclude, that wrappers in
the Especially in
The Netherlands we can find prototype examples of the of binding in [printed] wrappers. A schematic sketch of the construction is:
The novelty is
that at the hinge the pastedown does
not continue as flying endpaper,but is folded around the 1st
quire, and then folded inwards thus returning at the recto of that. In all
copies known there it is just a strip of paper of a few cm. wide and not a
full ffep. [thus saving material?]. Usually thin boards are thus attached to
the bookblock quite effectively. The wrapper is often quite thin paper, but as
it is pasted to boards and spine the resulting book is not too vulnarable. In
The Netherlands this method was in quite use. In the collection are examples
from In later
wrappered copies board and fpep are omitted and the wrapper is directly glued
to the spine only. This could be because,
better glue becoming available, the wrapper thus could be effectively
attached to the uneven spine only. The end result however is not a very sound
construction, resulting in nasty conservation problems in the present time. There is only
one German example of prototype wrapper binding in the collection, So by the time
it was allowed in An indication,
that in Germany possibly all copies of an edition were wrappered in one
batch, is the remark of Schmeitzner in a letter to Nietzsche in 1874, where
he states that he sent 600 copies [of an edition of 1000] to bookstores on
sight. A typical German custom, bookstores having credit until the next
bookfair when the books should be paid for or returned. A later example
of a German wrappers copy is shown here, because it is so really mint [book
#2553]
Public taste Apart from all
that, there are also matters of public taste influencing the composition of
an edition. An example is
the preference of That changed in
the first decade of the 20th century: The translation
of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Jenseits von Gut und Böse, finished already in 1898
by Helen Zimmern, was finally published in 1907. The larger copy to the left
is traditionally uncut, pp. being
Thus cut and
uncut copies [in smaller bindings] co-exist in this edition without any
indication of a time preference.
This picture
shows a cut copy above and an uncut one below, both opened at p. 105. It
should be remarked, that also the details of the typesetting of the note
[most liable to showing variance] exactly agrees in both binding variants. Another example
of such co-existing variants from the same type, evidently addressing
differences in the taste of the public, are the following jacketed and
unjacketed copies of Buck, The Life of Casanova, 1924.
Of the
traditional variant in orange boards pages are uncut and Both variants
share an identical printed paper title on spine:
The Ogden-Series at Routledge Kegan Paul In 2001 the
collection acquired a copy of Frank Ramsey, The Foundations of Mathematics,
1931 [book #13007]. It is a later volume in the INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF
PSYCHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD. The series started in 1922, the
editor for many years was C. K. Ogden. An earlier title Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922 presently is the most expensive title.
Senior booksellers could not tell too much about the Series and its editor. Irrelevant
here but intersting is, that Price
[Oxford] remembers having seen Ogden laying out many documents in a London
club around 1960, in an effort to
convince the publisher not to replace this 1922 he edited. The 1961
Guinnes/McPearson new translation
shows, that his arguments were not effective. The most
interesting asset of the Ramsey copy acquired is the dedication on ffep:
Plate
1
13007, actual size Ramsey died in
1930 aged 26, the Foundations being his collected works published
posthumously. Lettice is his widow. Ramsey helped This clearly is
an important association copy, the only remaining uncertainty in the
evaluation preparing its acquisition being the absence of a dustjacket on the
copy. The question seemed valid looking at the 8th [and last]
edition of the Content with
their assurance, the Ramsey copy was acquired, without jacket [as usual]. Two years later
Bill Schaberg [Athena Rare Books] acquired 2 jacketed copies of the 1922
Tractatus. My involvement in assisting him explaining those copies were the
main cause of two actions. 1. Browsing for
other early copies of the
This picture
does not answer the valid question phrased by the Michael will
recognize the 3rd book from the left [ The jackets can
be dated 1923-1929, some are on the Therefore it is
important, that after the line-up of the 11 titles shown, 2 additional titles
could be acquired.
The publication
year of both titles is 1922, the same as that of the Tractatus, and the
starting year of the series. Both copies are from the The records
include a Production Ledger The following
snapshot of the ledger shows the entry for the 1st edition of
Wittgenstein, Tractatus [1922]. 750
dustjackets are recorded in the last line at a date well before the issue
date [November 23, 1922] stated in the heading of the entry. Thus it is
physically possible, that copies came in jacket, also the first copy sold.
Those records
prove to be quite accurate. A special
concern is therefore, that no jacket is recorded for Tractatus 2nd
edition [1933]. Evidently the stock of 1922 printed jackets allowed not to
print new ones in 1933. Using 1922 jackets on the 1933 edition is very well
possible, as no 1st edition jackets known have an edition stated
on them. Further the Rignano title discussed in the paragraph on secondary
bindings shows, that on another occasion RKP stored a jacket for 23 years
[1926-1949] before it was used on a bound copy.. However then the 750 jackets
printed in 1922 are considerably less than copies gone into the The only
possible explanation is, that part of the copies were issued without a jacket
[to conservative booksellers?], and thus a jacketed copy is possibly not the
exclusive original state. Recently a 1933
edition showed up in a jacket without title:
Evidently no
specific jacket for the title was available at the moment of issue, which is
in line with the fact that no such jackets are recorded in the production
ledger for this edition. The other
examples of variant issues show, that the suggested two Closing remark The copies
discussed particularly suggest a transition time possibly between 1900 and 1930
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