Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/81

BOOK 75 parchment, the erasure was seldom complete, and the original writing can often bo made out. Several valuable works have thus been recov- ered. A manuscript of this kind is termed a palimpsest (Gr. TraAfyji/"?' 7 " ?) from TraAiv, again, and V> fv, to rub off). Had not paper, properly so called, been already common in Europe, the in- vention of printing, superseding the labor of the copyist, would have been of little value for the multiplication of books. In the earliest times books had been ornamented ; but in the middle ages they reached the acme, if not of beauty and convenience, at least of cost. In the process of preparation hooks then re- ceived the most careful attention. In the monasteries the monks were not only tran- scribers, illuminators, and binders, hut the same individual frequently combined the triple function in his own person. From the hands of the scribe the book passed to the illuminator, and from him to the binder, by whom its pon- derous proportions were encased in massive covers of wood and leather, studded with knobs and bands, often of gold and silver, and closed with broad clasps. When publicly ex- posed, they were frequently secured by chains ; nearly every great library contains books, often printed ones, with the chains still at- tached. Hooks were protected by special stat- utes ; were subjects of grave negotiations ; were solemnly bequeathed by will ; and were lent only to the higher orders, who were com- pelled to deposit ample pledges for their re- turn. Even so late as 1471 Louis XI. was com- pelled by the faculty of medicine at Paris to deposit a valuable security, and give a respon- sible indorser, in order to obtain the loan of the works of the Arabian physician Rhazes. Among the illustrations of cost which the in- dustry of bibliographers has collected, we find that St. Jerome, to procure the works of Origen, impoverished his estate ; that King Alfred gave for one book eight hides of land (480 to 960 acres) ; that the countess of Anjou paid for a copy of the homilies of Bishop Huiman, be- sides other articles of barter, 200 sheep. Stowe says that in 1274 a Bible finely written sold for 50 marks (about 34), at a time when wheat was 5d. a bushel, and labor Id. a day ; in 1400 a copy of Jean de Mehun's " Romance of the Rose " was publicly sold at Paris for 40 crowns (more than $150). But, according to a docu- ment in the monastery of St. Stephen at Caen, the works of Peter Lombard were bought in 1431 for 7 francs. It is thus difficult to as- certain the prices of books as determined by the value of material and labor at remote periods ; for the peculiar instances which have been placed on record are more likely to refer to exceptional and accidental conditions than to the ordinary and usual rates affixed by the un- derstood laws of trade. Something of the same kind occurs in our own time ; a book whose intrinsic value is but a few shillings, has often been sold for scores or even hundreds of pounds. (See BIBLIOMANIA.) Printing made no immediate or violent innovation upon the then existing order of things. Types were made to imitate the products of the slower process of writing, and the general appearance of MS. volumes was carefully imitated, so that for some time books still continued inaccessible to the people. But the desire for books was almost imperceptibly growing, the gradually widening demand keeping pace with and en- couraging the development of mechanical skill. Copies were multiplied with increasing ra- pidity and diminishing cost, and their sale becoming larger, while it reduced the propor- tionate expense, enlarged the aggregate profits of the maker. Nevertheless, in Europe, even long after the invention of printing, books were beyond the reach of the people, even had they been able to read. In China, and probably in Japan, printed books have been common and cheap from time immemorial. Their method of printing, which has undergone no important change for generations, enables them to produce a book much more cheaply than it could have been done with us half a century ago. Twenty-five or thirty pages for a cent is, and appears to have long been, a com- mon price for an ordinary book ; a cent, how- ever, representing a much greater value there than here. With us the manufacture of a book demands a large outlay of capital and the aid of various branches of mechanical skill. Strictly speaking, the making of a book begins with the author who writes it, or, as in the case of a collective work like a cyclopsedia or a gaz- etteer, the corps of editors, writers, and re- visers. Then follow, in regular sequence, the compositor, proof-reader, pressman, and binder ; and if the work is one of which a considerable number is to be printed, and is illustrated, the stereotyper or electrotyper, and the engraver on wood, copper, steel, or stone (lithographer), or perhaps two or more of them, will also be called into requisition. (See BOOKBINDING, CORRECTION OF THE PRESS, ELECTRO-MAGNET- ISM, ENGRAVING, LITHOGRAPHY, and PRINTING.) In respect to the size of their pages books re- ceive several designations. Originally these denoted the number of leaves into which each sheet was folded. In a folio, the sheet was folded once, making two leaves ; in a quarto (4to), twice ; in an octavo (8vo), three times, making 8 leaves ; in a duodecimo (12mo) the sheet made 12 leaves, but four leaves had to be cut off from one end of the sheet, folded separately, and placed in the centre of the other part, when folded. These terms are now used only in a general way, to indicate the size of a book. The introduction of power presses permitting the use of larger sheets, it is very rarely that a work is now printed in folio, or even in quarto, although a volume of very large size is still styled a quarto. This Cyclopsedia is a large octavo; a volume somewhat smaller is simply an octavo ; the next smaller size is crown octavo ; then come duodecimo, 18mo, 36mo, and so on. All printers are not pub-