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II
After one has thought about these questions of classification, the next step is to consider what pieces of information regarding non-letterpress material ought to be recorded in a descriptive bibliography and where
J. D. Cowley, in Bibliographical Description and Cataloguing (1939), provides a brief section on "Plates and Insets" (pp. 105-106), which begins rather shakily but recovers in the second of these sentences: "Typographically, I suppose, books may be held to be complete without any plates that they may be intended to have when they are published, because the plates are printed separately and are not included in the signed gatherings. But since in bibliography we are describing books as they were published, we must account for the plates in the technical note." His view is that they should not be included in the formulaic signature collation but should be entered in the form of a brief register (e.g., "plates, Front., I-VI") following the pagination statement, with a description "in a separate paragraph dealing with illustrations or in the analysis of the contents." Although he does not recommend giving the location of plates (normally, at least before the nineteenth century, "it is practically impossible to determine the exact position which any particular plate or inset was intended to occupy"), he suggests, somewhat inconsistently, that inserted maps, tables, and the like, not part of a regular sequence of plates, be specified by location ("plates [6]; inset tables following pp. 56, 72, 104").[37]
Ten years later Fredson Bowers, in Principles of Bibliographical Description (1949), also devoted very brief space to engraved title pages and plates (see especially pp. 287-289 and 446), but what he says is characteristically incisive and logical and provides a sound basis to build on. His recommendations are essentially the same as Cowley's, except that he stipulates the recording of the positions of plates—as in "plates [3] (opp. sigs. C4v, F1, G4v)"—using signature or page references to the facing pages.[38] But he provides a more thoroughly reasoned statement of the desirability of limiting the signature collation to material that went through the printing press and of recording non-letterpress insertions separately. There is no question that signature collations, which can
The most thorough contributions to the question of the bibliographical study of inserted plates have emerged, not surprisingly, from the examination of botanical books. Unlike atlases and music books, in which engraved leaves often form a solid block of material without intervening letterpress leaves, botanical books consist of engravings inserted into letterpress gatherings often enough to make the problem of their relationship a pressing one; and unlike literary books, in which illustrations are often regarded as serving only a decorative function, botanical books normally contain illustrations that are essential parts of what the works as a whole are intended to convey. Gordon Dunthorne is generally recognized as a pioneer in the bibliographical treatment of plates in his Flower and Fruit Prints of the 18th and Early 19th Centuries (1938). He was writing before Cowley and Bowers, of course, and his work now seems rather rudimentary, although many more recent bibliographies have not been as detailed in their handling of plates. What he did recognize was the value of noting plate marks, imprints, and watermarks, and he attempted to work out a concise method for recording them (using abbreviations such as TC for "top center" to indicate positions on the plate). A more significant landmark is Allan Stevenson's work in the second volume (1961) of the Catalogue of Botanical Books in the Collection of Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt. The remarkable introduction to that volume, which in explaining the methods employed becomes a 65-page exposition of the fundamentals of descriptive bibliography, offers
The principal issues that emerge from these discussions can best be considered in two categories: those that have to do with the actual description of the non-letterpress material and those concerned with how to incorporate those descriptive details into the formal description of the entire book. The former are the more significant, because they are substantive, but the latter are not without substantive implications. Certain decisions about the substance of a description, of course, may obviate certain questions of form: if, for instance, the treatment of plates is reduced to the simple statement that there are so many engravings after paintings by a particular artist and so many after paintings by another, the question whether the information about plates should be presented all at once or distributed among the paragraphs of the description does not arise. And such brief statements may be regarded as appropriate on certain occasions. As with the other elements in a description, various levels of detail may be adopted, depending on the nature of the material and the primary purpose that the bibliography or catalogue is intended to serve.[44] The parts should normally be kept in proportion to one another, and if the letterpress is given abbreviated treatment, the plates should probably receive similar treatment. If the plates are the principal interest of the volumes and if the audience for the bibliography consists largely of art historians, there is naturally good reason to go into some detail about the plates; but in that case one should usually provide more information about the letterpress as well, recognizing that evidence from the one, as part of a combined object, may be relevant to interpreting evidence from the other. There is no doubt about the value to historical scholarship of bibliographies that describe rather than merely identify, and wherever possible descriptions should be conceived on a scale that will allow the treatment of plates to include the kinds of details to be enumerated below. In any case the cardinal rule, exemplified in Bridson's paper, is that descriptive bibliography cannot logically slight any element that goes to make up the finished book, and plates must be dealt with as fully as letterpress.
Stevenson designates four groups of "the main identifying and descriptive details" to be recorded in his plate descriptions: "1) designation of type of plate and range of subjects; 2) titles, artist signatures, imprints; 3) sizes of typical plates, in inches and tenths; 4) position of
Taking all these considerations into account, I would suggest the following as the categories of information to be provided in a detailed description of non-letterpress material in books. They need not be presented in this order or be separated into these nine units; and although the wording here applies most directly to individual illustrative plates, this outline can, I think, be readily adjusted to accommodate other kinds of non-letterpress material:
(1) The title, caption, epigraph, quotation, or other wording meant to identify, describe, or interpret the plate. This wording should be set forth in quasi-facsimile transcription, and a note should indicate what parts of it, if any, are in letterpress. For a book that contains a list of plates, any discrepancies between the wording on the plates and the wording of the citations in the list should be specified, as Bowers points out. When plates do not have titles or other descriptive wording, and often when they do, the bibliographer may well supply brief descriptions of the content of the plates.[46]
(2) The medium and process employed. As Bridson notes, one should attempt to go beyond such simple designations of medium as "engraving," "etching," and "lithograph" to specify the precise process used.[47] Analytical bibliography applied to plates, just as when it is applied to letterpress material, requires a detailed knowledge of the technical processes involved; without that knowledge recognition of variants and reconstruction of the history of individual plates are likely to be less accurate.
(3) Artists' names. Any artists' names that appear on the plate should be transcribed exactly as they appear. Although Stevenson quotes artists' and engravers' names in "an early or dominant form," with "slight variation" indicated by a superscript "±" (p. clxxi), important evidence may be thus concealed, and the names should always be "given verbatim, misspellings included," as Bridson says (p. 474). One should attempt to ascertain the names of the artist and the engraver when they do not appear, as well as the medium of the original work.
(4) Imprint. Any printers' or publishers' imprints should be recorded in quasi-facsimile transcription, and when they do not appear an effort should be made to establish the name of the printer (and of the publisher if the plate was also made available separately from the book that provides the occasion for the description). Small details in an imprint may of course be an important clue for dating. One should be particularly cautious in accepting dates printed from copper or stone (cf. Bridson, p. 475).
(5) Dimensions. Depending on the period of the book, something will have been said elsewhere in the description about the size of the leaves of the book or of the sheets used for printing. The point here is to indicate the size of the illustration and of the copperplate or other surface if its mark is present. Stevenson advocates recording plate marks (p. clxxi), whereas Bowers gives priority to the dimensions of the engraved surface (p. 179), although he suggests that both measurements be provided (with the vertical dimension of the engraved surface further subdivided according to what part is illustration and what part lettering). Both are indeed important, and Bridson further shows (p. 474) the usefulness (for distinguishing similar engravings) of noting the relative position of the engraved surface on the plate. Thus to Bowers's example for an engraved title—"plate mark 392 x 198 mm.; engr. tit. with lettering 223(261) x 156 mm." (p. 179)—one should add an indication of the distances to the edge of the plate on each side of the latter dimensions. One might even decide to combine all these figures in the form "60|223(261)| 71 x 15|156|27 mm.," where the figures to the left and right of the vertical lines are the distances to the edge of the plate (above and below, respectively, for the vertical measurement, and left and right for the horizontal). In addition to furnishing these figures, one should also describe the impression made by the edge of the plate, following Bridson's suggestion that it may be helpful to know whether the plate has "a plain or a bevelled edge or square or rounded corners" (p. 474).
(6) Typography or lettering. Any letterpress typography should be described, as one would describe any other typography in the volume,
(7) Color. Indication should be made of whether the illustration is color-printed or hand-colored (that is, hand-colored, before publication, for the whole edition or some part of it, as opposed to the individual hand-coloring that might occur after publication), and the color, or prominent colors, identified.[49] If important variations in color are discovered through the examination of multiple copies, they should be specified.[50]
(8) Paper. The paper on which the non-letterpress material is printed, generally different from the paper for the letterpress, similarly can offer important evidence for dating and should be recorded in the same way that the paper constituting the letterpress sheets is recorded.[51]
(9) Bibliographical classification. Some remarks should be added that make clear the status of the plate as an independent entity. If, for example, no variations exist among copies of the plate as they are found within copies of the printing or issue of the book to be described, then strictly speaking perhaps no further comment is required. But if all those copies of the plate are in fact part of the second issue of the plate as separately published, that piece of information is a relevant addition to the description of the plate, even though it has not bearing on the classification of the book as a whole. If, on the other hand, copies of the plate do vary among copies of the printing or issue of the book, the variation would presumably already have been mentioned under one of the headings listed above. The variation, however, could result only in states of the plate, as far as the book is concerned; but if it happened that the variant plates actually constituted two issues as separately published, that fact could be reported here.
Descriptions on this level will not always be regarded as feasible: even Allan Stevenson normally listed plates selectively.[52] But when other aspects of a book are to receive detailed treatment, there is no justification
In addition to the description of the plates (or other materials) themselves, there is the question of recording their positions in the books in which they occur. Some difference of opinion has existed on this matter. Whereas Bowers takes it as a matter of course that plates and insets have "their positions noted in the description" (p. 288), Stevenson (despite his listing of "position of plates" as one of four items to be included in descriptions) remarks in an often cited (and misused)[53] statement:
In fact it matters very much simply because the plates are a part of the book, and one has not described the book without describing their relation to it. But beyond that, since plates are part of the content or "text" of a work, establishment of their positions is a substantive, not merely a formal, matter. Bridson points out, for example, the importance for the study of nomenclatural priority of reconstructing—in the case of books published in fascicles—exactly which plates appeared in each fascicle;[55] and he suggests some techniques of analysis, such as examining stab-holes, offset, staining, and the like, that can help in determining those original arrangements (p. 477). When directions for placing the plates—either as a list or as a statement on each plate—are published with a book, bibliographers have sometimes contented themselves with recording this intended order (which is, of course, important), without further investigating whether the plates originally appeared in a different order, as in fascicle publication. The separate parts of books published serially—whether novels or scientific works with plates—were intended to be bound together, and in their original form many of them are understandably scarce today. But bibliographers must attempt to locate them (not only for the arrangement of their contents but for the information printed on their wrappers) and, whether or not they can be found, must analyze whatever evidence is available in an effort to learn as much as possible about the history of the publication of the books being described. Bibliographers, in other words, cannot stop with a report of what publishers intended but must try to uncover the history of what they actually did. The fascicle order of plates, then, is important in its own right as a fact of publishing history but is also important for the light it may shed on textual and nomenclatural matters.[56] Naturally there may be times when there is insufficient evidence to enable the bibliographer to say anything about the locations of the plates in a volume; but the absence of such information ought to mean that the bibliographer
The practical question of how to list these locations therefore must be faced. We may begin by accepting the point established by Bowers, Stevenson, and others that it is a mistake to try to incorporate this information within the collation formula for the letterpress sheets. Of course when one is describing a book in which the non-letterpress material falls in a single block and is not interspersed through the letterpress leaves—as in a fascicle with the plates at the end or an atlas with a letterpress title page and introduction—there is no problem anyway, since the letterpress and non-letterpress do not intrude on one another. This kind of situation could easily be handled in some such manner as the following:
- 8°: A 8 B-D8, 32 leaves, pp. [4] I 2-59 60; plates I-V (facing B2v, B6, C4v, C8v, D3).
- Letterpress. 8°: A 8 B-D8, 32 leaves, pp. [4] I 2-59 60.
- Plates. I-V (B2v, B6, C4v, C8v, D3).
The inclusion of the plate collation adjacent to the signature collation (clearly the right spot for it) leads to the question where the other details about the non-letterpress material ought to be placed in the description. Conventionally there is a paragraph labeled "Plates" or "Illustrations" that brings together these details. Yet an exception is (rightly) made for an engraved title, which is treated along with the letterpress title page. Thus two principles are at work: the handling of the engraved title and of the plate collation supports the idea that the focus of the description is on the book as an entity and that both letterpress and non-letterpress material will be brought into the description under categories—such as "title page" or "collation"—that refer not to a method of printing but to a characteristic of the completed book; the presence of a "Plates" paragraph, on the other hand, suggests an organization in which the method of production of the material takes precedence over its function in the book. The point is perhaps most clearly illustrated with reference to the description of paper: should the paragraph on plates include a description of the paper used for the plates, or should that description come in the paragraph on paper, which takes up the paper found elsewhere in the book?[58] If one answers that logically the paragraph on paper should include all papers in the book, whether used for letterpress or non-letterpress, one is really taking a stand on the question whether or not a book is fundamentally "complete" when its letterpress is complete. The implied answer is that if the book included plates
Books containing non-letterpress material present such a multitude of different situations that bibliographers will inevitably have to make their own adjustments in individual cases, and it is not my aim to try to suggest a simple formal arrangement to be used on all occasions, for that aim is unrealistic. Rather, what I am concerned with is the point of view or general approach that underlies bibliographers' treatment of non-letterpress material. Central to the view I have expressed here is the proposition that the same standards and procedures of classification and description are appropriate and desirable for both non-letterpress and letterpress material. This view further implies that both are equally deserving of the bibliographer's full attention: both are part of the contents, physically and also intellectually, of the books in which they appear together. Non-letterpress material may seem more directly relevant to the intellectual content of books in some fields than in others. One may, for instance, think first of natural history books when reading a comment like W. M. Ivins's on pictures "made to convey visual information":
Nevertheless, it is true that the exact nature and role of non-letterpress material varies from field to field, and interdisciplinary cooperation is especially important for the growth of bibliographical knowledge in this area. Bibliographers must take the broad view, and see their own particular problems of description in the context of non-letterpress description in general, if they are to benefit as fully as possible from relevant advances already made and if they are to produce bibliographies that meet as fully as possible the needs of users from different fields. Allan Stevenson was well aware of the mixed audience he was serving in the Hunt catalogue, and he has a great deal to say about the use of his catalogue by botanists and students of the graphic arts as well as by collectors and other bibliographers. "Those parts of the description are most successful," he says, "which prove of value to the botanist and these others at one and the same time" (p. cxciii). Or, as he puts it more succinctly, "Bibliography prefers to serve not one but all." In order to do that, all must cooperate, and Stevenson expresses the hope that bibliographers and scientists will "agree to use their special funds of experience and information to the common end of good descriptions." All who deal with the history of books, regardless of the field, do of course have common goals, and all their work is interrelated. The study of non-letterpress material in books provides a particularly forceful illustration of this basic point.
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