Overview
After Gutenberg’s Bible had appeared in print in 1455, other early printers found different ways to solve problems set by the new technique. Survival of printer’s copy or proofs permits rare views of compositors and printers manipulating a text before it emerged in its new form. Versions were corrected to be fit for purpose, and might be adapted for a much enlarged readership, especially if the language was vernacular. The printing press itself required careful measuring and fitting of texts. In twelve case-studies Lotte Hellinga explores what is revealed in printer’s copy and proofs used in diverse printing houses, covering the period from 1459 to the 1490s, and ranging from Rome and Venice to Mainz and Westminster. See also the companion volume by the same author, Incunabula in Transit (Brill, 2017).
Full Product Details
Author: Lotte Hellinga
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Volume: 38
Dimensions:
Width: 15.50cm
, Height: 3.00cm
, Length: 23.50cm
Weight: 0.900kg
ISBN: 9789004277168
ISBN 10: 9004277161
Pages: 452
Publication Date: 20 August 2014
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
Anyone studying the least detail of books printed or written in the second half of the fifteenth century, their texts, layout, decoration, rubrication, format, substrates, inks for writing or printing, pigments, secondary features, from cadels to apparently casual or incidental marks, now has a handbook packed with information on all these topics, to be read, marked, learned and inwardly digested, before attempting analysis or explanation of any of them. Nicolas Barker, in: The Book Collector (Winter 2015), pp. 511-518. the fifteen essays in this volume together constitute a coherent statement of our most advanced knowledge in the field of incunabula studies ... Hellinga's view is Europe-wide and touches on cases in Italy, Germany, the Low Countries and England, and occasionally also in France and even Poland ... the volume may be consulted as though it was a reference work on the technique of incunabula printing. Koen Goudriaan, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In: Quaerendo, Vol. 45, Nos. 3-4 (2015), pp. 332-336. Lotte Hellinga's collection of studies Texts in Transit ... offers a picture that is often rather more complicated than was imagined even when she began her systematic study of fifteenth-century printing. David McKitterick, Trinity College, Cambridge. In: Times Literary Supplement, 1 May 2015, p. 29.
Author Information
Lotte Hellinga, Litt. D. (1974) University of Amsterdam, was Curator (later Deputy Keeper) at the British Library, 1976-1995. Recent publications include The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. III (co-editor and author, 1999), the catalogue of English incunabula in the BL (‘BMC xi’, 2007) and William Caxton and early printing in England (2010).
