[iii]

PREFACE.

CONSIDERING that this short studycan claim to be nothing more than arapid and somewhat summary surveyof the history of The Book, iteschews all controversial matter, nordoes it pretend to convey much freshinformation to those already possessing a special knowledgeof the subject. It is rather a condensed, but atthe same time, it may be hoped, a useful, compendiumof the thousand unknown or now forgotten essays, involvingendless contradictory statements, that have beenissued on this theme. The mere enumeration of suchworks would simply suffice to fill a volume. We haveaccordingly no intention to attempt a bibliography,satisfying ourselves with the modest avowal of havingfound so many documents in all languages, that thevery abundance has been at least as embarrassing tous as the lack of materials may have been to others.

The Book appealing in its present form to a specialpublic interested more in artistic than in purely[iv] typographicaltopics, our attention has been more particularlygiven to the illustrators, the designers, engravers,etchers, and so forth. Such graphic embellishmentseemed to us of more weight than the manufacture ofthe paper, the type-casting, the printing properly socalled. This technical aspect of the subject has beenvery briefly dealt with in a separate chapter, and hasalso been enlarged upon in the early section. To thebinding also we have devoted only a single chapter,while fully conscious that a whole volume would nothave sufficed merely to treat the subject superficially.

At the same time, we would not have the readerconclude from all this that our book abounds in omissions,or has overlooked any important features. Thebroad lines, we trust, have been adhered to, while eachsection has been so handled as to give a fair idea ofthe epoch it deals with. This is the first attempt tocomprise within such narrow limits an art and an industrywith a life of over four centuries, essaying todescribe its beginnings and its history down to ourdays, without omitting a glance at the allied arts.

The engravings selected for illustration have, as faras possible, been taken from unedited materials, andhave been directly reproduced by mechanical processes,while fifteen new illustrations, having special relationto the history of the Book in England, have been addedto this edition, which is also considerably enlarged inthe text on the same subject.

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