 | Notes on Recent Work in
Descriptive Bibliography |  |
COLLATION
In the second part of my 1985 essay on transcription and collation
(see
above), I pointed out the importance of a record of gatherings
(whether
signed or not) for books of all periods, since the physical structure of
a
book is the most fundamental aspect of its description. I have frequently
used
the term "signature collation" only because it is a conventional one,
even though
what the collation formula deals with is gatherings, not sig-
natures, as I said in
note 63. (A true signature collation would be a com-
plete register of signing—a
fuller one than the kind that has typically
followed the formula in the past.) The
synecdochic use of "signature" to
mean "gathering" is common among printers but is
not (and should not
be) among bibliographers, despite their tolerance of this
phrase. Clearly
a book without printed signatures still has a structure, and a
formula
representing its structure can still be constructed by assigning
consecutive
numbers to the gatherings. Sometimes, indeed, there are printed
signa-
tures that are not related to the actual gatherings; and if there are
no
other printed signatures that do relate to them, the formula would again
have
to be made from assigned numbers. (There are also instances where
more than one set
of printed signatures are present, and if one of them
corresponds to the actual
gatherings, it would of course be used.) A note
should then be appended referring to
the irrelevant printed signatures
(irrelevant for this purpose). These points
probably go without saying
(and I did not mention them in 1985), but
they may be worth noting ex-
plicitly since some attention has recently been given
to the phenomenon
of unused signatures by B.J. McMullin,
in "Gatherings and Signatures in
Conflict" (Script &
Print, 39 [2015], 241–247)—though McMullin
is not
here concerned with the collation formula. (For the bibliographical
uses
of these signatures, see under "Typesetting and Presswork" below.)
Also in the 1985 essay I made a suggestion to correct the only
seri-
ous flaw in Bowers's thorough treatment of the
collation formulary: his
handling of insertions, where he complicated matters
unnecessarily by
attempting to report the signing of insertions along with their
placement.
My suggestion was simply to assign the number "1" to any inserted
leaf
and to number consecutively the inserted multiple leaves at any given
point
(using the conventional comma to indicate disjunct leaves and pe-
riod for conjugate
leaves). (The signing of inserted leaves would then be
noted as part of the regular
statement of signing.) This approach has been
well received, as is indicated, for
example, by B. J. McMullin's approval
58. As a way of testing the system, he asked how one would note "an in-
sertion consisting of an odd number of leaves where the one disjunct leaf
is found in the middle." My answer, eight years later in the same journal
(p. 108), was "1.5, 2.4, 3."
Another matter relating to insertions: in note 52, I stated that an
insertion of
letterpress text between gatherings should be treated as an
independent element and
not be associated with the preceding or fol-
lowing gathering; but I added (based on
Bowers), "except when the link
is definitely
established, as with the same signature." I think it would be
better to say that a
signature is normally the only acceptable link, since
other links would be likely to
involve excessive reliance on intellectual
content, and the formula is not primarily
concerned with content but with
structure. This is not to say that content and
structure are unrelated, for
often one does learn something about the content from
the structure (see
below); and the content may be a help in deciding what belongs in
the
formula (see the next paragraph) and may even sometimes be the only
way (in
books not published in bindings) of determining the correct order
of the gatherings.
But the job of the collation formula is to record the
structure of the "sheets,"
which are usually defined for this purpose as
the folded letterpress gatherings plus
any insertions (normally letterpress)
that contain part of the continuous text. Thus
non-letterpress insertions,
which can be structurally identical to letterpress
insertions, are not nor-
mally included in the collation formula but instead are
recorded in a
separate line (see "Non-Letterpress Material" below). By separating
the
letterpress sheets from engraved (or lithographed) insertions, the
bibliog-
rapher is further clarifying a book's structure.
Although distinguishing letterpress from non-letterpress is normally
clear-cut,
there are situations that call for the bibliographer's judgment
in deciding which
insertions belong in the basic formula. Because I did
not comment on this matter in
1985, and because Bowers's discussion of
it
(Principles, pp. 287–289) is unclear, I shall say a word about
it here. To
begin with, there can be insertions that contain both letterpress and
non-
letterpress, and in these cases one could take the nature of the
letterpress
into account. If it is a caption for, or commentary on, the
non-letterpress
part, one could treat the insertion like any other non-letterpress
insertion
and list it separately from the formula. But if the insertion includes
some
letterpress text that connects with the adjacent text on the integral
leaves,
it could appropriately be treated as an element in the formula. (It
would
be no different from an integral leaf that contains both letterpress and
an
engraving, in instances where a sheet of letterpress was subsequently
run
through a rolling press.) Similarly, in the case of a wholly letterpress
inser-
tion that was clearly a separate production (and possibly of a different for-
the formula would not be in line with the function of the formula, despite
the fact that it is letterpress. The presence of pagination on any insertion
is not enough to settle the matter, even though the resulting pagination
record would sometimes show a gap that is in fact filled by information
in the collation line for insertions. This approach seems sensible, but a
fixed rule would probably be less satisfactory in some instances than reli-
ance on the bibliographer's judgment. What is finally most important is
that the bibliographer make absolutely clear, in an appended comment,
what the situation is.
The question whether there can ever be odd superscript numbers in
a collation
formula continues to come up, even though it is hard to see
how the answer can be
anything but an unequivocal "no" (see footnote 38
in my essay). If the function of
the formula is to show book structure (as
it unquestionably is), then an odd
superscript does not serve the purpose
because it does not show the placement of the
disjunct leaf. Yet even so
careful a bibliographer as J. D.
Fleeman sometimes uses odd superscripts
in his great
Samuel Johnson
(2000). The best case for odd
superscripts in
certain situations has been made by B. J.
McMullin in "The Description
of Volumes Gathered in Nines" (Script & Print, 37 [2013], 32–39).
The
situation arises mainly when an eighteenmo forme is imposed for gather-
ing
in nines rather than sixes—an arrangement that does occur in rare
instances,
especially in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
McMullin argues that an insertion planned as a regular part of a
volume
should be treated differently from leaves inserted occasionally to
rectify
a problem (which he calls "genuine" insertions); he also believes,
since
the inserted fifth leaf is often signed with a "5", that it would be
unwise
to treat the leaf following it as the regular fifth leaf in the gathering
sim-
ply because it is conjugate with the fourth leaf. His
recommendation,
therefore, leads to a formula on this model: "A-F9 ($5 inserted after $4)."
I do not, however, find this argument persuasive.
The fact that the fifth
leaf of every gathering is a singleton (and was planned to
be so) does not
make the structural situation any different from the one that exists
for all
insertions; and it would seem to be productive of confusion to say that
a
planned insertion after $4 should be called $5 (with the following leaf
$6),
whereas an unplanned one should be called $4+1 (with the following
leaf
$5). I believe the best approach for an eighteenmo in nines is to say "A-F8
($4+1)." (The actual signing would of course be recorded
separately.) In
this way the clarity and uniformity of the formulary does not have
to be
diluted, without any compensating advantages.
An interesting problem for the construction of a formula arises in con-
nection
with Renaissance music partbooks, all of which for a given title
were sold together
as a unit, though each had its own title page and may
thoroughly investigated this matter in "Bibliographical Aspects of Ital-
ian Printed Music of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" (Studies
in Bibliography, 56 [2003–04], 195–242). His sensible solution is to use
a bracketed letter and colon preceding the sequence of signatures for
each part, thus producing a single formula for the whole series of parts
but allowing the individual parts to be easily identified. A formula might
begin "[C:] A-D4; [T:] E- H4 …" (with "C" and "T" referring to "canto"
and "tenor"). When the parts are signed with separate alphabets, the
order of parts would remain the same (for it was a conventional order):
"[C:] A-D4; [T:] A-D4 …" (the bracketed letters allowing one to distin-
guish the identically signed gatherings without the use of prefixed index
figures, which would not be unambiguous since the order of the parts is
not self-evident). Boorman's article gives 92 examples of his system in use,
and he employed it in his bibliography of Ottaviano Petrucci (2006). His
work illustrates how the standard formulary can be imaginatively adapted
to different situations.
Another example is Anthony S. Drennan's suggestion for
handling
volvelles (woodcut diagrams with attached circular paper disks that
the
reader can rotate), in "The Bibliographical Description of
Astronomical
Volvelles and Other Moveable Diagrams" (The
Library, 7th ser., 13 [2012],
316–339). The movable parts of a
volvelle were printed on a separate
leaf from the base diagram and were meant to be
cut out and attached
to the page where the base diagram was located. Uncut leaves
printed
with volvelle parts rarely survive, and generally they have no obvious
lo-
cation in a collation formula; but Drennan feels that
the formula should
somehow note the fact that such leaves were once present (even
though
they were not intended to be part of the structure of the book after it
was
bound). One might see an analogy between an uncut volvelle leaf and
a
cancellans, since both were meant to be removed and relocated; the im-
portant
difference, of course, is that the cancellans replaced another leaf,
whereas the
cut-out volvelle parts were attached to another leaf. Dren-
nan understands that it would be unwise to try to account for the
added
pieces in the formula, and he properly recommends listing the
completed
volvelles separately. (For this purpose he has created an elaborate set
of
symbols for constructing a "collation formula" for each volvelle, showing
its
completed structure, and he appends additional commentary in words;
some
bibliographers may choose to avoid the formula and place the whole
account in
words.) The question is how to indicate in the letterpress col-
lation formula that
one or more uncut volvelle leaves originally accom-
panied the unbound sheets. Drennan chooses the Greek letter lambda,
which he places at
the end of the collation, along with an indication of the
zero. (The choice of lambda is unfortunate, since Allan Stevenson used
it to signify a letterpress leaf that was meant to be inserted to accompany
an engraved plate.) In cases where leaves with uncut volvelle parts were
printed as part of the main block of letterpress sheets, the use of lambda
(or some symbol) to explain certain cancellations may be helpful, as in "B4
(− B4 = λ1)." But simply attaching "λ1" or "λ0" to the end of a formula
may not serve much purpose, since the record of completed volvelles (and
their locations) makes clear that the book is one that incorporates cut-out
pieces. Still, it takes up little space and is worth considering.
A less successful way of dealing with volvelles is Mark
Bland's proposal
(in A Guide to Early Printed Books and
Manuscripts, 2010) to use the Greek
letter rho to indicate paper
that is attached to a printed page and thus
to create such an impossible expression
as "P4r + ρ1" (p. 64). He also
misuses chi to refer to inserted
engravings, even though the practice of
treating engraved and letterpress material
separately is by now well estab-
lished (see above). A similarly unwise suggestion
(again involving attach-
ments) is Patrick Spedding's idea
that a full-page paste-over cancel might
be recorded in the formula with reference
only to one side of the leaf, as
in "(A1v + χ1v)", as if a leaf can be split between its recto and verso sides.
But the
size of a paste-over cancel is irrelevant: any patches (regardless
of their size)
affixed to leaves (or meant to be) should not be included in
the collation formula
but rather noted in a separate explanation. (See
Spedding's "Cancelled Errata in
John
Buncle, Junior, Gentleman," Script
&
Print, 38 [2014] 115–121; and the responses to it by Carlo Dumontet, B. J.
McMullin,
John Lancaster, Richard Noble, and
me on pp. 249–252.)
An idiosyncratic collation system used by Robert Dawson in The French
Booktrade and the
"Permission Simple" of 1777
(1992) is effectively
dismissed
by B. J. McMullin in "Dawson Described" (Script & Print, 30 [2006],
174–180). Another
proposal that is unhelpful—in this case because what
it advocates is already
standard—is in R. B. Williams's "Victorian Book
Printing:
A Rare Supernumerary Signature" (Journal of the Printing
His-
torical Society, n.s., 18/19 [Summer/Winter 2012], 75–79).
Williams notes
that Charles
Williams's
Silver-Shell (1856) includes the signature "J"
and
then recommends interrupting the formula to indicate the presence of
"J"
("B-I8 J8 K-L8"),
since the normal practice in formulas is to assume the ab-
sence of "J","U" (or
"V"), and "W". This practice is obviously necessary
and already well accepted. A
brief discussion of some formulaic details
occurs in Anthony
James West's "A Model for Describing Shakespeare
First Folios, with Descriptions of Selected Copies" (The Library, 6th ser.,
21 [1999], 1–49), where he
reviews a few minor differences among the
usages of Greg,
Hinman, and Blayney (without saying what Bowers's
but his preference for a colon rather than a period to signify conjugacy
seems an unnecessary departure from standard practice.
Although the word "collation" is generally used by descriptive bib-
liographers to
refer to a report of the structure of the gatherings, there
are other kinds of
collation (in the general sense of a verification of the
order and completeness of a
series of items) that enter into a description.
For example, it is conventional,
following the formulaic record of the
gatherings, to state the number of leaves
represented by the formula and
then to provide a record (a collation) of pagination,
showing unambigu-
ously which pages have page numbers and what style of number is
used
(as in "pp. [i–iv] v [vi], [1] 2–4 [2] 5–11 [12]," where
the bracketed
italicized "2" indicates how many unnumbered pages whose
pagination
cannot be inferred are present at this point). For books that have
inserted
non-letterpress material, a separate collation of those insertions
comes
next (perhaps in its own "Collation" paragraph). The next paragraph
in
most descriptions is one headed "Contents," which indicates (preferably
in
quasi-facsimile quotation: see above) the intellectual content printed on
every page
(or group of pages), using signature notation and/or pagina-
tion for reference.
Because of the frequent irregularity of pagination in
pre-nineteenth-century books,
one should follow Bowers's advice to use
signature
notation instead of pagination for this period. An added benefit
(pointed out by
Bowers) is that studying the relationship between
produc-
tion and content is thereby facilitated. (A good recent example of
such
a study is John Barnard's "Dryden's
Virgil (1697): Gatherings and Poli-
tics," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
, 109 [2015], 131–139.)
As a result of this
advantage offered by signature references, I would
recommend using them for books of
all periods, perhaps accompanied
by page numbers. Thus the "Collation" and
"Contents" paragraphs are
complementary, the first collating physical makeup and the
second col-
lating intellectual content; when used together they help to indicate
how
manufacturing and meaning interact.
Because I commented briefly in my 1985 essay on the relation of
the
gathering-collation formula to format (since both relate to structure, and
a
format designation often precedes the formula), I should mention that
later (in
2000) I discussed the concept of format at length (see
"Format"
below). The most important post-1985 discussion of the
collation for-
mula itself is in the appendix to Paul Needham's
Hanes lecture, The Brad-
shaw Method
(1988), pp. 24–33. Although he does not propose alterations-
to the
presently accepted style of the collation formula, his account of
its history and
the principles behind it will enrich any bibliographer's
understanding.
| Notes on Recent Work in
Descriptive Bibliography | |