Glossary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Books, manuscripts and letters are, of course, different types of objects: books tend to exist in multiple copies or editions, while a manuscript or letter is a unique item. Accordingly, their collectors use different criteria to determine their value.

There are however, certain factors that go into determining the quality of most of these works regardless of type. The following guidelines provide information that will help you to assess the most important among them: rarity, priority, provenance, and condition.

Aquatint

a technique of etching copper with acid to produce an effect resembling the flat tones of wash or watercolour.

Binding Shaken

this is where the text block is coming loose from the binding (spine and end-boards) The stitching is usually broken in this case.

Blind stamped tooling

A book entirely bound in stiff boards covered by cloth.

Books

For book collectors, condition is always a relative quality. A sheaf of badly stained and torn pages found in a hayloft that turned out to be a first edition of William Blake's 1763 Poetical Sketches could be extremely valuable, depending on what other first editions of the poems existed, and in what condition.

Whether you have found an old and rare volume or are considering purchasing an important book at auction, the first thing to do is to compare its condition to that of other known copies. There are five generally accepted grades of condition: Fine, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor. For most collectors, condition is of paramount importance and it is a general practice to purchase the highest level of condition that can be afforded.

Condition labels are useful guidelines, but are not used consistently. (Sotheby's, for example, does not use them at all.) In general, you should judge a book's condition relative to that of a newly printed book. Do not make allowances for age. If a book printed in 1723 has a damaged cover and worn pages it should not be rated as fine for its age, but as good or fair. If you must rely on a written evaluation of a book's condition, the seller's reputation can matter more than the written description.

Next, determine whether the book is clean. Books should not be soiled or have foxing on their pages. Pages should be free of tears and fraying.

Is the book complete? Check to see if pages are missing, including frontispieces, title-pages, maps and illustrations. (The latter are particularly popular as prints and are often removed and framed.) Lost pages, even those that did not have text or illustrations, will significantly reduce a book's value. A missing title–page can render even a rare book essentially worthless.

Is the binding original? Books printed before the 19th century were generally issued without covers and bound by either the bookseller or the buyer. Regardless of who bound a book, its cover should be contemporary with its printing. Serious collectors want early 19th–century books to have their original binding and 20th-century volumes to have their original dust jacket.

Finally, has the book been repaired or restored? Common repairs include rebinding (which should be sympathetic to the book's subject and period – a book by a German Romantic author should not have a Bauhaus design on its cover), rebacking (which replaces the spine or strengthens the cover joints) and page restoration (which can mean anything from the reattachment of original pages to their replacement with facsimiles.)

When well cared for, books and works on paper can survive for many generations. The factors that can most seriously jeopardize these works include light, temperature and moisture, chemicals and handling. Even well cared for books, though, sometimes need restoration.

Chemicals

When preparing to store books or mount letters for display, use only archival and acid-free paper and board. (Acid is an enemy of paper but, unfortunately, is found in many materials, including paper itself.) Never wrap books in newsprint or plastic, which contain acid that can leech into and discolor any adjacent material. (You have probably noticed how quickly a newspaper yellows if left outside or in strong light for more than a few hours.) Adhesive tape is even more damaging and should never be used to repair any work on paper.

Condition

Manuscripts Since letters and manuscripts exist in one and only one copy, condition is less of an issue: what you see is all you can get.

One factor that definitely does not matter to collectors of letters and manuscripts is how neat the written or typed text is -- the more mistakes, corrections and commentary, the better. Notations and corrections provide much of these documents' allure, making the author's working style and thought process visible.

Ink is the preferred medium for manuscripts and letters, even though it can fade or bleed until it becomes illegible. Pencil's proclivity to smudge makes it less desirable, but pencil is better than type which, unlike handwriting, cannot convey the author's personality.

To be valuable, letters and manuscripts must be complete; if any pages are missing, particularly pages within the main body of the text, this will reduce a document's desirability. The paper should be in good condition. Foxing or tears and creases that do not interfere with the text or signature are less serious than those that do. Letters and manuscripts often exhibit repairs; as long as the repairs do not obscure any text, they will usually not radically affect the document's value.

D.J.

Dust Jacket.

D.J. price clipped

the bottom left corner where to publishers traditionally print the price as a guide. (This would then be cut off diagonally.

Doublure

The leather inside lining of a cover or paste-down (see Endpapers). Often decorated, doublures were most popular in France, where the term originated.

Duodecimo

a book size resulting from folding a sheet of paper into twelve leaves. (12cm x 6cm)

Dust Jacket

A paper wrapper that protects a book's cover and binding from soil or other damage. The dust jacket covers the book from top to bottom and has flaps that fold over each cover. In addition to their protective role, dust jackets frequently are used to promote the author and his or her works.

Edition

All of the copies of a work printed from the same press set-up. The edition number is usually printed on the book's title page, along with information about any previous editions. (See Impression and Issue.)

Elephant Folio

Embossing

to mould or carve (a decoration or design) on a surface so that it is raised above the surface in low relief.

End-boards

Endpapers

Sets of pages found at the front and the back of a book, between the text and the binding. An endpaper's outer leaves are secured to the inner surfaces of the cover and are known as the “paste-downs.” The inner leaves that form the first and last pages of the book are known as the “free endpapers” and are often marbled or otherwise decorated. Endpapers generally are considered part of the binding rather than part of the book.

Facsimile reprint

an exact copy or reproduction of the original.

Fair copy

Usually a final version of a manuscript or letter, a fair copy contains no corrections or emendations.

Folio

a sheet of paper folded in half to make two leaves for a book (40.6cm 25.4cm)

Format

The shape and size of a book. The formats most commonly used are folio, quarto, and octavo, terms that originated with the process of making books by hand from sheets of parchment. A piece of parchment was folded in half to make a folio, into quarters to make a quarto and into eighths to make an octavo. (In 1527, the king of France standardized paper sizes in his kingdom, and anyone caught not adhering to the standardization was jailed.) Today, the terms folio, quarto, and octavo roughly describe the size and layout of a book: a folio is a large book with a vertical orientation; a quarto is a medium-size square book; and an octavo is a smaller book with a vertical orientation.

Foxing

A light brown stain caused by a) a fungus in the paper b) the fluctuation in humidity within the book. Both take place predominantly in humid environments.

Foxing

Reddish-brown patches of discoloration that can appear on paper and eventually destroy it. Foxing is caused by a fungus that thrives in damp conditions. The process can be arrested and -- if desired -- the patches removed, particularly when the growth of the fungus is in its early stages.

Free end-paper

this is the other half of the end-paper (as apposed to the pastedown.)

Frontispiece

An illustrated plate, usually a portrait, inserted facing the title page.

Gilt

23-carat gold leaf is used and applied by pressure from the binder.

Gilt edges

Edges of a book that have been trimmed, sized, covered with gold leaf, and burnished.

Gutter

The margin at the sewn fold of a section or at the spine of the volume.

Handling

While true accidents (dropping a book or creasing a manuscript) tend to damage these works most, subtler mishandling of books can also be harmful. Don't place open books facedown. Store large or heavy volumes on their sides so that the weight of their pages does not damage the book's spine. And take additional care when removing books from tightly packed shelves -- pulling on the top edge of a book's spine or cover can weaken the binding.

History of Books

The modern book's earliest forerunner, the codex, was devised about 2,000 years ago. A small notebook made of wax-covered wood pages, codices were inscribed, smoothed and reused. Eventually, the codex evolved into bundles of folded and stitched parchment or papyrus sheets that were tied to wood covers.

In China, beginning in the 6th-century A.D., books were printed from carved wood blocks one page at a time. By the 11th-century A.D., the Chinese had invented moveable type, but the process was not practical for their texts because of the very large number of Chinese characters.

In Europe, meanwhile, the primary bookmakers were monks who crafted manuscripts and block prints for royalty and clergy. Working in artisan teams, they mainly produced illuminated (illustrated) copies of existing scriptural texts. These were painstakingly handwritten on vellum then decorated in vivid colors and finally bound with covers of vellum, leather or more precious materials, such as ivory or silver. The Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels are two well-known examples of illuminated manuscripts.

Before printing, wealthy individuals would have desired sections of manuscripts copied into what were called commonplace books. At that time, books rarely traveled outside the circles of the aristocracy, keeping education and information tightly controlled

Two events revolutionized bookmaking in Europe: the arrival of paper in the 13th-century (another Chinese development that the West learned about via the Islamic world) and the invention of moveable metal type, famously invented in the 1400's by German printer Johannes Gutenberg. The first book Gutenberg printed was, not surprisingly, a bible which he created by hand-setting 42 lines of text per page, rolling ink over the surface of the letters and then pressing this block of text onto a sheet of paper. Gutenberg's methods would remain essentially unchanged until the 20th-century.

As the art of printing spread across Europe, books and the information they contained ceased to be the exclusive provenance of the church and the aristocracy. Literacy spread; the Renaissance's secular scholarly and literary endeavors both fed and fed upon the trend.

Technological innovations continued to improve the quality of printed books and make them more affordable. The development of power-driven presses in the late 18th-and early 19th-centuries accelerated the printing process and the invention of Linotype and Monotype increased printers' ability to rapidly reset and alter their presses.

Today, virtually any home computer and printer can produce professional looking printed material. On a larger scale, systems are being developed that allow printers to make changes, via a computer, to a book while it is in production. This will eliminate costly changes in the setting of presses and, in many cases, eliminate the presence of different imprints and issues as the changes can be made mid-stream.

Impression

All copies of a work printed at one time from one setting of type. Several impressions (presumably unaltered) of one edition may exist, with each new printing from standing type or original plates constituting a new impression of the work.

Issue

If an alteration or correction to a book occurs after the initial printing, but within the same edition, the revised version is known as another issue of the edition.

Leaf

The most basic element of the book, a leaf is the piece of paper that is commonly known as a page. Technically, the term page means either the front (recto) or back (verso) of the leaf.

Light

Whether natural or artificial, light can discolor paper, causing areas to fade or darken. Take care to protect all works on paper from prolonged exposure to direct sunlight or high-intensity lighting. Keep photocopying to a minimum. If you require multiple copies of a particular page, make a master copy and use that for all subsequent copies.

Liner

See Endpaper and Doublure.

Lithograph

a method of printing from a metal or stone surface (each colour has a separate metal or stone printing surface). The printing areas are not raised but made ink-receptive as opposed to ink-repellent.

Margin

The area of a page between the printed, written, or illustrative matter and the edges of the page.

Morocco leather

Multiple

Any work that is produced by a printing process, usually in large numbers. Most commonly used to refer to books, prints and photographs.

Octavo

a book size resulting from folding a sheet of paper to form eight leaves (20.3cm x 12.7cm)

Octavo

See Format.

Parchment

The skin from various animals treated to form a durable material. It is taken almost in all cases from mature animals.

Pastedown

this is the half of the end-paper, which is laid down onto one of the end-boards (as apposed to the free end-paper.

Photogravure

any of various methods in which an intaglio plate for printing is produced by the use of photography.

Plate

An illustration printed separately from the text of the book, usually on a different paper stock and most often created by a different printing process.

Prelims

Preliminary pages also referred to as blanks or the flysheet.

Priority

Priority refers to a book's place within title's publication history. Many titles exist in various editions, issues and impressions. While the general tendency, especially among fiction collectors, is to emphasize firsts– for instance, the first printing of the first edition of the first book by Edgar Allen Poe–the majority of books are printed in only one edition. A quick check of a book's title–page will tell you if it was part of the first edition.

At times the first edition of a book might be less desirable than a later one. For collectors of non–fiction who value the information a volume contains more than its date of issue, a better researched or corrected edition may be the most important and valuable. Later editions might include maps or illustrations or represent the book's first appearance in a particular language, another popular first for collectors

Provenance

Provenance, a term derived from an old French locution meaning to originate, refers to an object's ownership history: its life story. While the initial ownership of a letter – the author and recipient – is the core of its provenance, the person who possessed the letter afterwards can be important. Provenance is also important to collectors of books and manuscripts. While a manuscript, unlike a letter, is not written to a particular person, its value may be enhanced if it was owned by someone of historical or topical importance. A film library's copy of an early screenplay for The Wizard of Oz would certainly be worth owning; Judy Garland's copy containing her handwritten notes and changes would be a greater treasure.

Provenance's role in book collecting follows rules similar to those for manuscripts. If a book can be traced to the library of an historical figure or well-known collector, its value may increase. Since contemporary authors often sign many books for promotional reasons, their signatures usually do not contribute as much to a book's value as do older signatures in older books. More desirable are copies that bear inscriptions from the author to a particular person. In any event, consider whether a book signed by its author appeals to you because of its provenance, its innate value, or a combination of the two. In all cases, links to previous owners should be thoroughly documented before you decide that this connection makes the volume more valuable. Letters from previous owners are the most common form of documentation followed by references in other sources. Every so often, even photographs are used to place an object in the possession of a particular person.

Quarto

a book size resulting from folding a sheet of paper to form four leaves (25.4cm x 20.3cm)

Rarity

What makes a book, manuscript or letter rare is difficult to define in absolute terms. Contrary to popular belief, a book's age rarely determines its rarity or value. Only if a book was printed prior to 1480 - less than 30 years after the first printed book–might its mere age make it important. Many books that are literally rare (i.e., very few copies exist) have little or no market value. Examples of these include most older fiction titles, bibles and textbooks.

A truly valuably rare book must possess a widely agreed-upon intrinsic importance. Examples of truly rare books could include early texts of important literature, early reports of novel scientific achievements, or illustrated volumes that contain the work of a fine artist.

If a book is part of a limited edition, it is important to note the total number of copies that were printed. It generally holds that the fewer copies of a book that were printed, the greater its rarity. However, if a book was initially printed in a very small edition, collectors may have immediately been aware of its rarity and been more careful to preserve it paradoxically making it less unusual today

For letters and manuscripts, a combination of author and subject matter determine desirability. The manuscript in which Albert Einstein outlines his theory of relativity, for instance, is far more desirable than his manuscripts on mathematical principles. With letters, the recipient's identity is another important factor:a letter Paul Cezanné wrote to Camille Pissarro would be more desirable than one written to his landlord. (Unless the letter to the landlord shed light on an important but previously unknown aspect of Cezanné's life or included drawings in the margin!)

The overall number of a given writer's extant letters will also affect individual letters' value. Mark Twain is known for the enormous number of letters he wrote under both his pen and real name, Samuel Langhorne Clemens. The author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is thought to have written some 30,000 letters over the course of his life

Recto

the front of a sheet of printed-paper and the right-hand pages of a book, bearing the odd numbers.

Restoration

Once a work on paper has started to decay, it is not possible to reverse the process. Restoration aims to prevent further decay and to extend the item's life, while saving as much of its original character as possible. To varying degrees, restoration does reduce an item's overall value, but its ultimate benefits both to the item and the owner are definitely worthwhile.

Restoration can range from repairing a tear or removing a stain to completely renovating every facet of a book, including replacement of missing parts, resewing of the leaves, and recovering of or restoration of the original binding material.

Restoration is not to be undertaken without serious thought and consideration. We recommend that you speak with a specialist before arranging for any type of restoration.

Rexine

synthetic leather.

Soft Cover

Often called “paperback” sometimes misleadingly this refers to any cover that is not cloth-bound or self-bound (meaning bound in the same stock as the book itself was printed on).

Speckled calf

a stain technique on the calf leather whereby there is a contrast in colour. Usually tiny blacks dots on a tan coloured calf.

Spine

The spine of the book is the area created when the pages of a book are sewn or otherwise bound together. The spine is also called the “back” of the book.

Temperature and Moisture

In general, books do well in the same kind of climate many people enjoy -- cool and dry. High humidity levels provide an excellent environment for mold (an expecially destructive growth on paper) as well as for infestation by insects.

What matters most, however, is that the temperature and humidity in which books and manuscripts are stored remain constant. Books should not be stored in attics, basements, or any areas in which you cannot control the temperature and humidity.

Title-page

Usually the second leaf of a volume, the title page contains the full title and subtitle (if any) of the book as well as the name of the author, the publisher and the date of publication*. The title page will also usually specify the edition of the book and, often on the back of the title-page, the particulars of the edition such as type and paper. *(In many books, the year of publication is printed in Roman numerals. The following are the characters used in this system: : M=1,000; D=500; C=100; L=50; X=10; V=5 and I=1.)

Vellum

a fine parchment prepared from the skin of a calf, kid or lamb. The creamy colour is from the curing process or lime.

Verso

at the back of a piece of paper or end board

Vignette

a small illustration placed at the beginning or end of a book or chapter.

Walnut calf

this is a walnut paint technique whereby there is a contrast in colour. A stamp would be used to create this effect.

Woodcut

a block of wood cut along the grain and with a design or illustration. Incised with a knife. The woodcut is then inked and a print is made from the block of wood.