Posts By: Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Marks on Bindings

March 3, 2021 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Thank you for your witty guesses to this month’s Crocodile, they are great! I also need to make a disclaimer: I am far from having collected enough evidence to answer this mystery, so like you, I only have guesses to offer and they may not be as funny as yours… Like many of you, I’m leaning towards the hypothesis that this book was used as a board mat to cut something (most likely paper).… Continue Reading

An Unfinished Title Page Border?

October 6, 2020 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Many thanks for your answers to last week’s post. They convey the puzzling nature of this title page border: Is it an unfinished work? Was it intended to be completed by readers of the book? Does it look different in other copies? To our eyes, indeed, the border design may look incomplete: the figures in the foreground, which we would expect to be highly finished, are either barely ‘legible’, suggested or simply not worked out.… Continue Reading

A red proof sheet used as printer’s waste

May 6, 2020 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Thank you for your guesses on this month’s crocodile mystery. The leaf pictured here shows text from the Litany printed in red. The blank space is where the text in black would have been printed in a second press run. This leaf belongs to a set of four flyleaves—each with text from the Litany printed in red on one side only—located in the binding of a copy of The Image of Gouernance translated from the Greek by Thomas Eliot and printed by Thomas Berthelet in 1544.… Continue Reading

The Many Different Ways to Make a Lacemaking Pattern Book: The Case of Vinciolo’s Book

April 9, 2020 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Early modern lacemaking pattern books are ‘eye catching’ picture books with pages after pages of intricate designs. Unlike most modern pattern books, they generally include very little instructions on how to execute their models, expecting readers either to already be experienced needleworkers or to simply enjoy browsing through their images. Some time ago I serendipitously found in our collections a copy of Federico Vinciolo’s lacemaking pattern book.… Continue Reading

Book Stamps

September 4, 2019 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Many thanks for your guesses. What you see in this picture is the verso of a title page leaf. The stamp at the top of the picture is indeed the one of the Basel Public Library. The coat of arms beneath it depicts the arms of the Gufer von Reinhardsberg family from Bamberg, active at least until the early 18^thcentury.… Continue Reading

The Location of Plates in a Book

April 26, 2019 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

When consulting a book with plates (that is, inserted leaves printed separately from the text), it is best not to assume that they have been placed in the same location in all copies of the same edition nor that their location in the book reflects the one intended by the author or the publisher. In our copy of Hiob Ludolf’s book on the ancient Ethiopian language of Ge’ez, for example, the portrait of the Ethiopian abbot Gregory was inserted between leaves E1 and E2 (or pages 34-35): while in the Bavarian State Library copy, it is located before leaf A, after the preliminary leaves including the author’s preface.… Continue Reading

What is the scope of the STC?

March 7, 2019 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

John Lancaster’s guess for March’s crocodile post is correct: This catechism, printed in Basel by Andreas Gesner, has an STC number because it follows the use of Salisbury; it therefore belongs to the group of books not in English printed abroad “according to British ‘use’” described in Katharine Pantzer’s introduction to the second edition of the Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad (STC).… Continue Reading

The Drury Lane printshop

August 8, 2018 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Jeffrey Meade’s guess is correct: this type inventory includes a great variety of large sized type. It belongs to a longer document made in June 1819 recording the furniture of the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane when the theater was put for sale by its Company of Proprietors (Folger MS W.b.383). Drury Lane was acquired later that year by the actor and manager Robert William Elliston.… Continue Reading

Engraved to Sell

June 14, 2018 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Printed ephemera can be exciting, especially when it reveals information that can be found nowhere else. When it is also a very rare piece with only a couple of extant copies recorded, and its design is intriguing, the discovery is even more interesting. I was thus thrilled when, following a tip from a colleague, I found in the Folger stacks this small seventeenth-century engraved print containing information on where in London one could subscribe to John Ogilby’s English Atlas.… Continue Reading

Cracks in Etched Plates

March 7, 2018 | By Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Originally, I was going to do a crocodile post about the binding of this architecture book by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau: But after I thought about it, it seemed more appropriate to talk about the prints in the book. Andrea Cawelti guessed right: the wavy lines on this image correspond to cracks in the plate, which retained ink and printed. Other prints in this book show the same type of defects: As well as some corresponding to cracks at the edge of the plate: Several prints also show plate scratches: and a certain ink smudginess: In addition to these blemishes, several plates have one-sided beveled edges: and one print shows a plate corner missing: Clearly something was wrong with the set of plates used for this book.… Continue Reading