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I
In 1974 two works appeared that attempt to deal with the problems of bibliographical classification in cartography and musicology, and they can provide an instructive introduction not only to recent thinking in those fields but also to the nature of the difficulties such an undertaking entails. One is Coolie Verner's paper on "Carto-Bibliographical Description: The Analysis of Variants in Maps Printed from Copperplates," in the inaugural number of the American Cartographer (pp. 77-87); the other is the substantial volume that D. W. Krummel compiled for the International Association of Music Libraries, the Guide for Dating Early Published Music: A Manual of Bibliographical Practices. Both deserve credit for being pioneer efforts and for focusing attention within their fields on important but neglected questions; both also have short-comings, as their authors would no doubt agree, and a consideration of certain of those flaws can, I hope, serve a constructive purpose. I find
Verner, after explaining the kinds of events that occur in the history of individual plates of maps, concludes, "Terms used in descriptive bibliography [i.e., of letterpress books] are not applicable to cartobibliography because the precise conditions described by a term in the one are not found in the other" (p. 84). This statement, on the face of it, raises a number of problems. If indeed the "precise conditions" are so different, then of course different terms are desirable. But that observation hardly gets us very far. It is true that some terms used in the description of books have been employed with different meanings in the description of maps, and there is of course an awkwardness in such a situation. But to conclude that the same terminology will not fit both kinds of material is not a very productive solution: one of the goals of bibliographical description, as of other kinds of historical research, is to find connections, or patterns, or organizing principles, in the mass of surviving evidence. Even though letterpress is a relief process (or, in its more extended sense, a planographic one as well) and engraving an intaglio process, both involve presses of some sort and the transfer of inked images. It would seem profitable, therefore, to proceed from a premise of underlying similarity rather than to emphasize differences of detail.[4]
For example, in his brief discussion of issue, Verner cites definitions by McKerrow and Bowers and then concludes, "In view of the precise meanings attached to the term issue in descriptive bibliography and its inappropriateness for carto-bibliography, this term should not be used in describing maps" (p. 86). Why it is inappropriate for cartobibliography is not analyzed; instead there is the flat statement that the "very specialized application" of the term to letterpress material has "no corollary in carto-bibliography." Although there has been some difference of opinion about exactly how issue should be employed in the description of books, the various definitions share a common theme: an issue is a publishing unit within an edition or a printing, and variant features that provide evidence of publishing or marketing decisions (such as a cancel title leaf with a different publisher's imprint or an inserted series designation) are determinants of issue.[5] In the case of an individual map, the substitution of one publisher's or bookseller's name for another by means of a paste-over cancel would create a different issue; and even if situations producing issues are not common in connection with the publication of separate maps, the possibility of such situations should surely be recognized in any theoretical framework for classification. Furthermore, when several engraved maps are fastened together as a unit, they become in effect a book, and the concept of issue is as relevant to such books as to letterpress books. Issue, of course, refers to whole entities as they are made available for sale, not to particular constituent parts of them, and engraved maps inserted into letterpress books may become elements in one or another issue of those books; indeed, their presence could conceivably be the factor determining issue, if copies of the letterpress sheets were also published without the maps. Although variants in individual maps are not necessarily involved here, the point is that the concept of issue cannot be regarded as irrelevant to the study of the way maps are published.
The logic of Verner's discussion of edition is equally questionable, but his comments do serve to illustrate still more of the problems involved. Verner says that the definition of edition by McKerrow and
Another is the idea that edition is synonymous with "plate" and "therefore redundant." It is true that "plate" is often used to refer to individual finished products rather than to the copperplate itself: we speak of a letterpress book illustrated with "plates." In this sense all the "plates"—that is, all the copies of an engraving—produced from a single copperplate would be analogous to a letterpress edition (all the copies from a given setting of type).[7] But this use of "plate" is not what Verner has in mind. "In carto-bibliography," he says, "the term plate applies specifically to the wood block, copperplate, or lithographic stone used to print a given impression of a map" (p. 85). In that case it is difficult to see how "plate" renders the term edition redundant, for the former refers to a printing surface and the latter refers collectively to all the copies printed from a particular printing surface. Edition in letterpress terminology does not, after all, refer to type formes but to all the sheets of paper that have been printed from a given set of such formes.[8] Precision
Perhaps Verner intends to make a similar point when he admits that edition should be used "with reference to a given group of impressions of a map." But the definition he approves for this purpose creates further difficulties: "all of the impressions [copies] of a map printed from any given state of a plate."[9] The result of this definition would be that a single copperplate could result in more than one edition. Since edition has been more widely used for books than for engravings and since the meaning of the term in that connection is well established, it would seem to be foolish, when applying the term to engraved material, to support a usage that is not parallel to the usage for books. There is surely a convenience in having a term to refer to everything produced from a single plate, stone, setting of type, and so on, and edition would seem to be the clear-cut choice for this term. Equating an edition of an engraving with a single state of a plate (whatever "state" means) can only invite misunderstanding.
What Verner means by "state" is of course relevant to understanding his comments on edition. He believes that there is "essentially more agreement between descriptive bibliography and carto-bibliography with respect to the meaning attached to the term state than to any other terms used conjointly" (p. 85). In carto-bibliography, he says, "state identifies and designates a particular period in the life of the plate; during another state the plate will differ from the preceding in some particulars." Any difference, in other words, produces a new state. Those accustomed to talking about letterpress material would be more inclined to think of state as referring to the printed pieces produced. This point is not of great moment, since normally a different state of type-impressions on a piece of paper results from a different state of the type.[10] (There is a more substantial point involved, however: description, whether of books or of maps, has as its primary focus the finished products, which in any case are generally the only evidence one has. When a copperplate or a stereotype plate has survived, it can be described, but such description is subordinate to the main business of bibliographical or carto-bibliographical
In letterpress bibliography, issue and state are subordinate to printing, when an edition consists of more than one printing. For Verner this point is unnecessary, because he dismisses the concept of printing as irrelevant to the study of engraved maps. A printing has traditionally been defined as all the copies printed from a setting of type at one time— that is, in a single press run. Verner asserts, "This is not a pertinent characteristic in the study of early printed maps, since it is impossible to identify with certainty what copies were pulled at the same time so long as the plate was not altered by plate changes" (p. 85).[13] (One might
There is a difficulty of terminology that must be faced in connection with printing. Descriptive bibliographers of books have traditionally regarded impression as a synonym for printing, and publishers as well as bibliographers use impression to refer to a group of copies, not to individual copies. However, scholars of cartography and of art history, who regularly deal with engravings, have customarily employed impression to signify each copy made from a copperplate. One must admit that this usage has as much logic as the other—indeed, it probably has more. Each copy of a book is an impression from the type, just as each copy of an engraving is an impression from the copperplate. The only problem is one of convention: impression is not conventionally used to mean "copy" by bibliographers of letterpress. This difference of usage is awkward, but nothing more: it does not reflect any underlying differences
That Verner's attempt to do the latter leaves something to be desired is further illustrated by his definitions of four terms that he says "are applicable only to printed maps" (p. 86). It is worth looking at these definitions, for their deficiencies are instructive, particularly in regard to the question whether description is to be focused on the copperplate or on the copies made from it. The first of these terms is "change": "Any alteration effected to a plate which prints on successive impressions pulled after the change is made constitute a plate change and create a new state of the plate."[14] This statement perfectly illustrates the problem through its inclusion, as a restrictive clause, of the words "which prints on successive impressions pulled after the change is made." By shifting here from the plate to the impression, the sentence succeeds only in making the nonsensical assertion that plate changes are changes that show up in printed copies made from the plate. Obviously one could change a plate and never print from it, but it would be no less a change for that. The fact of a change in the plate is not tied to whether the plate is actually printed from, though of course normally the only evidence one has for a plate change is a surviving impression made from that plate. One can legitimately say that two states of the impressions made from a plate, if they are of a certain kind,[15] are evidence of a change in the plate; but one cannot turn the point around and say that changes in the plate are changes for which evidence exists in printed impressions. The illogic of Verner's statement derives from a wavering as to whether he is talking about plates or impressions from them.[16] If his focus had been consistently
His definition of "variant copy" suffers in the same way. "The term variant copy," he says, "is used to identify an impression which can be distinguished from another one pulled from the same plate and state, where the differentiating characteristics occur on more than one such impression and do not result from alterations to the plate itself as in the case of watermarks in the paper." Because his emphasis in defining state and "change" is on the plate, he feels the need for a term to refer to other changes that affect the finished product. But if he had kept that product at the center, he could have recognized more easily that differences in the plate and differences in the paper both produce differences in the resulting artifact and that it is logical (if perhaps unconventional) to regard both as resulting in different states of the finished prints. Indeed, either could result in different issues as well as states: the use of two different grades of paper, for example, might signify two issues just as much as might certain kinds of changes made in the plate. Because the use of state to mean "state of the plate" is so well established among those who write about engravings, one will no doubt have to speak of "state of the print" (or some such term) when one is referring to the printed piece of paper. But logic dictates that state and issue, as terms for the classification of artifacts, must encompass all kinds of differences present in the artifacts at the time of their release to the public. This approach does not of course result in any blurring of the distinction between differences in the plate and differences in the printing, for the features determining issues and states would obviously be recorded in any description; what it does is provide a logical framework for showing relationships among printed copies, taking into account the paper and the inked impressions that together make up those copies. The term "variant copy," as Verner defines it, thus seems unnecessary; as a technical term it is unwise because it is conceived too broadly to make the distinction between issue and state. Not the least curious aspect of his
The two remaining terms, "ectype" and "piracy," raise a somewhat different problem, but one of equal importance from a theoretical point of view. "The term ectype," Verner announces, "is used to identify a particular plate of a map which is very similar to that which it replicates but differs from the original only with respect to bibliographical details." He then adds, "This term has no counterpart in descriptive bibliography." The reason it has no counterpart is not that there is no parallel situation but that, as defined here, the concept is confused. If a plate is "very similar" to another one, it is nevertheless a different plate—just as a plate of a map representing a totally different geographical area would be a different plate. What links the two "very similar" plates together is their content—or what in connection with letterpress books might be called the "work" embodied in the physical object. It is conventional to distinguish between a "work" (an arrangement of words and punctuation) and a "book" (a concrete object that embodies one representation of a work). When a verbal work is set in type a second time, the resulting edition may be just as different from the first in typography, paper, and binding as an edition of some other work; it is related to the first only because the arrangement of type-impressions in it is meant to be a representation of the same work. In the case of maps, one would have to define what the counterpart of "work" would be. It would obviously not be simply a question of geographical region, scale, projection, and so on, but of individual attempts at such delineation. Defining what is meant by the "same" work or deciding when a version becomes "another" work is a problem relevant to all fields. Is is a problem, however, that relates to intellectual content rather than to physical form.
Bibliographers of books have not needed a word like "ectype" because their basic terminology relates to the physical aspects of books, and different settings of type are different editions regardless of the content of what is set; when they need to discuss several editions because those editions contain the same work (and they do, of course, have to decide what texts can be regarded as versions of the same work), it seems sufficient to refer to the first edition, second edition, and so on, of that work. The trouble with a term like "ectype" is that it joins considerations of content and of form: it refers not only to a separate edition (a distinct plate) but one that at the same time is related in content to another one.
This point can be illustrated by considering Verner's fourth exclusively carto-bibliographical term, "piracy": "The term piracy applied to a particular plate of a map which is so like the original which it replicates that it is apt to be mistaken for that original but which was issued by a publisher other than the one who published the original map" (p. 86). If "piracy' 'is supposed to indicate an unauthorized edition, as the word would naturally suggest, the definition does not make the point clear. For is it not possible that an authorized publisher could use a new plate so close to the original that it is "apt to be mistaken" for it? Can an ectype—a plate "very similar" to another but clearly distinguishable from it—never be pirated? The terms are not mutually exclusive, for they mix up considerations of similarity of content with circumstances of publication. It would seem to be more sensible for the basic terms of bibliographical classification to refer strictly to physical evidence; these terms can then be modified, as the occasion warrants, with adjectives that express various other considerations, reflecting publishing circumstances or characterizing content, as in "English edition,"
Verner in effect recognizes this point when he says that a piracy "should be designated as one of the plates of the original with the added designation of Piracy, e.g., PLATE III, Piracy" (p. 79)—which is parallel to such a phrase as "third edition, pirated." The third act of engraving of a particular map (a "work"), like the third act of typesetting of a verbal work, produces the third plate or third edition of the work, whether or not it is "pirated." But these clear lines are blurred by Verner's definition of a piracy as a "copy of a map that is so like its prototype that the two might be confused." One of course hopes that a bibliography, by setting the facts straight, will provide the means for distinguishing among items that might be confused; but the bibliographer's assessment of potential confusion cannot be the basis of bibliographical classification or the determinant of a piracy. This curious emphasis recurs in other statements: "The inclusion of such piracies in the description of an original map also eliminates the possibility that the copy might be considered to be a different map, thus acquiring validity as an historical document which it does not actually possess." The acquiring or losing of "validity" does not affect classification, nor therefore the arrangement of entries implied by the classification; if a particular piracy is found to be the third engraving of a work, then it naturally falls into the position thus dictated, whether its stature is enhanced or lowered by that placement. In any case, a piracy, simply because it may have been intended to be taken for something other than what it is, does not thereby lose "validity as an historical document." It exists; it played a role in the publication history of the work; and it is therefore a historical document. The fact that it is not the first publication of the work does not deprive it of validity as a document—though of course its significance will vary depending on the purposes for which one turns to it as documentary evidence.
Verner's paper obviously serves a useful function in focusing attention on some central issues in the description of engraved material, but
We can pursue this line of thinking further by turning to the other 1974 work mentioned earlier, D. W. Krummel's Guide for Dating Early Published Music. In the section entitled "Differences between Copies" (pp. 30-48), Krummel[20] takes up questions of bibliographical classification, and from the outset we know we are in the presence of a person who has given sustained and methodical thought to these matters. A carefully balanced note at the beginning reports that some music bibliographers doubt whether "the terminology of general bibliography, growing out of experience with literary texts, mostly printed from movable type, should be used for musical editions, mostly printed from engraved plates"; but it concludes unequivocally: "The present study," Krummel says, "endorses the use in music bibliography of the terms of the general bibliographer."[21] The argument leading to that conclusion
After defining edition, Krummel goes on to take up issue, state, and impression, in that order. His discussions are thoughtful, as one would expect, and (with one significant exception, to which I shall return) they reflect the standard definitions as commonly understood by letterpress bibliographers at the time Krummel was writing. His comments on issue (pp. 31-32), for example, are "quoted and paraphrased from
Krummel's discussion of state raises a few additional questions. He equates state with "variant" and defines it as "any form of musical publication which exhibits variations in content caused by purposeful alteration
The fourth standard term that Krummel takes up is impression,
Krummel proceeds to the difficult question of the integrity of copies. Although he deals with it briefly and from the point of view of cataloguers (likely the main component of his audience) rather than bibliographers, he does recognize the logical necessity of moving on to this matter. First he seeks to define copy and rather puzzlingly offers two very different definitions, adding that the second "would appear on general principles to be the better one to follow" (p. 46). It certainly is the preferable one: it defines a copy as comprising "whatever was known or likely to have been offered for sale in the earliest copy . . . including wrappers, catalogues, and the like."[31] The earlier definition takes copy to exclude wrappers, catalogues, and "other material superfluous to the content and the publishing event." But one is dealing with published items, and if a catalogue or a publisher's wrapper or casing was part of the entity as published, then it is part of "the publishing event," whether or not it is "superfluous to the content." However, the question of determining what in fact was a part of a copy as published is a central one in connection with books not in publishers' casings, especially when those books contain both letterpress and engraved material or consist of items also made available separately. As an illustration of the view that often "the precise entity is impossible to determine," Krummel cites the libretto of Don Giovanni, which "may, or may not, be seen as
The contrast between Krummel and Verner could hardly be more striking. Krummel's discussion is clearly the more reasoned and thoughtful; and, even if it requires some modification here and there, it demonstrates a sound and fruitful basic approach. But the process of examining the arguments of Verner, in addition to those of Krummel, has served, I hope, to show what the principal issues are. Underlying everything else are the opposite positions these two writers take on the question whether the terms—and therefore the concepts—of classification in letterpress bibliography are applicable to non-letterpress material. The answer to this question, as I trust the present discussion has shown, cannot really
Another central point is that bibliographical description in all fields must be concerned primarily with the printed items themselves, not with the printing surfaces that produced them. The bibliographer can infer certain facts about the plates, types, or stones from the finished product; but that product is the primary evidence, capable of being examined directly by the bibliographer, and is the object of the description. That the bibliographer's focus must be on the published entity is particularly obvious when one considers publications that consist of more than one unit—several letterpress sheets, or letterpress sheets joined with engraved music, maps, or illustrations. In these cases, although one must try to do justice to the component parts, one must also account fully for the composite entity, which is a fact of publishing history. Some parts of a book may have had a separate existence, as independent
The classification of a published entity, therefore, cannot be governed by the classifications that may have applied to certain of its parts that were made available to the public separately. For example, since issue and state refer to variations within printings, the insertion of a particular issue of an engraving in all copies of a given printing of letterpress sheets does not result in any differences among copies. The fact that the map, say, was also available separately—and, as a separate, was a second issue—could appropriately be pointed out in the description of the inserted plates in the volume; but the volume as a whole would simply be a first printing, one of the characteristics of which is the inclusion of a map that—as far as its own separate history is concerned— is a second issue. If some copies of the first printing of the book contained the second issue of the map and others contained the first issue, the difference would have to be taken into account in the description of the book, since there would then be a variation distinguishing some copies from others within the same printing; but the result would not necessarily be two issues of the book, simply because two issues of the separate map were involved. There would be two issues only if the use of the second issue of the map became the occasion for a separate publishing effort (indicated, among other possible ways, by a cancel title, perhaps referring to the particular issue of the map included). Otherwise there would be a single issue (that is, a single printing) of the book, in which the map appears in variant states, indentifiable as the first and second issues of the separate map. Whatever created the second issue of the separate map (perhaps a different imprint) does not create an issue of the whole book unless the publisher calls attention to it as characterizing a discrete group of copies. Similarly, if copies of a single issue of the separate map are included in all copies of both the first two printings of the volume, the result is simply two printings of the volume; the presence in them of the same issue of the map does not make all copies
One should not conclude from these hypothetical examples that letterpress sheets take precedence over non-letterpress material in bibliographical classification. So long as we are talking about non-letterpress "insertions" into books that are largely made up of letterpress sheets, there seems nothing odd in allowing the letterpress material to play a determining role; but many books exist in which the engraved plates bulk far larger than the letterpress sheets (books of engraved music with letterpress prefaces, for instance, or suites of illustrations with brief introductory texts in letterpress). In any case, the relative quantity of the letterpress and the non-letterpress material is not the only factor to consider; equally important is whatever element—most commonly the title page—serves to define the book as an entity. Thus if a cancel letterpress title leaf, with a different publisher's imprint, is inserted into the sole letterpress gathering at the beginning of a volume consisting otherwise entirely of engraved music, a new issue is created, even though the engraved material is dominant in the volume and is invariant. If instead to accomplish the same purpose the entire letterpress sheet (gathering) were reset but the engraved music were still from the original printing, the result would still be an issue—not a new edition, even though the preliminary gathering would be a new edition, since the body of the book would still be of the original printing. Both the bulk and the title page play a role: that the reset material is such a small fraction of the volume (whether the rest is engraved is actually irrelevant) means that a new edition has not been created, even though the reset part includes the title page; and the existence of the new publisher's imprint in the
Nor is there any point here in outlining further examples or kinds of situations: the number of possible permutations is large, and enough has been said to suggest how they can be dealt with by a consistent application of the principles underlying the basic concepts of bibliographical classification. Any system for handling non-letterpress insertions in letterpress books must be applicable as well to the more general problem of composite volumes containing items (whether or not printed from a different kind of surface) that have had an independent publication history. Judgment is involved in applying terms like edition and issue to these volumes, and bibliographers will not always agree in their assessment of complicated situations. But if they understand the basic concepts of classification and recognize the double level of classification required when independent entities are incorporated into larger entities, they are sure to clarify the publication histories of the volumes they describe. The object, after all, is to explain a course of events as clearly as possible to the reader, and one is free to use phrases and sentences in addition to the basic terms. Attempting to assign terms like edition, issue, and state should not be an exercise in applying arbitrary definitions but should be a process that allows one more clearly to see, and express, relationships. The same kinds of relationships exist among the elements of composite volumes in all fields; and asking all bibliographers—regardless of the subject matter they specialize in—to work within this one framework of classification is not to impose restrictions on them but to assist them in making their labors as productive as possible.
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