Bibliography - Typography

Bibliography: Updike, Daniel Berkeley. Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use (volumes 1&2), 4th ed. Oak Knoll Press, 2001.  This book really describes the history of different printing types from many different countries like France, Germany, and even Latin-based roots. It included a lot of picture copies of these different texts as well. It started with the fact that Gutenberg did not actually invent printing, but that he adopted many ideas from different countries around him. I originally found this on the HBLL page and wanted to read it, but it was already checked out; luckily I found it free on Google Books. Blades, William. The biography and typography of William Caxton, England's first printer. 1824-1890 This book began with a biography of William Caxton (obviously stated in the title of this book), but it also delved into the history and development of England's first printer. William Blades listed several things in which you can determine when a book was published and how similar early typography was to books that were handwritten by a scribe. For example, how each page was written one at a time, how each print varied from another, what kind of paper they used, how closely they printed to the inner margins, the kind of ink, etc all contributes to helping bibliographers and others know precisely when the book was published. This book can be found at the HBLL and also in the Hathi Trust Digital Library. (Click the link in the title above). Printers' marks : A chapter in the history of typography by W. Roberts editor of "The Bookworm". W. Roberts (William), 1862-1940. The best description of this book is found here in the book's preface: (Please notice the pretty art) This book discusses printer's marks, which were used to protect from piracy; illustrations; book origins; history and bibliography; art, and many other subjects. Full of fascinating information. You can also find an online copy at this link here. Sir John Young Walker MacAlister, Alfred William Pollard, Ronald Brunlees McKerrow, Library Association, Sir Frank Chalton Francis. The Library, Volume 8. This book is a compilation and discussion of many different texts of different authors all of whom either wrote a book on an area of typography or wrote an actual document using typography. It included many historical documents and discussed which font number type it was, what ink it was written with, how many leaves, etc. It brushed on wood engravings, and how different blocks were carved. This book contained a LOT of information. Gress, Edmund G., A. Frederick,  etc. The American manual of typography; an exhaustive exposition of the various phases of type-composition. 1903. This book is incredibly detailed and covers so many topics! It begins with more modern forms of typography, but constantly refers to ancient methods. I thought it was really interesting how often it mentioned that some typographers try to model their print after medieval printing methods, because of the artistic beauty and how authentic the type looks, making it more appealing. Also, all throughout the book, it had pictures of old type, and it was fascinating to look at. I found this books on Google books. (Click the link in the title above). Challenges and Insights and Interesting Facts:   Probably over 60% of the books and bibliographies I found were in other languages, which made it rather difficult to research. I definitely had to get creative! Google Books "Content" drop down menu on many of the books were very inaccurate. Finding books about older texts instead of about modern day typography Trying to understand the older texts. They were WAY above my knowledge level...definitely written for someone who is in to that kind of thing. Finding footnotes Wikipedia searching was WAY more interesting to me than boring old books. No offense. But I felt like I actually learned more with Wikipedia because they were straight to the point, chronological, more on my comprehension level, and had so many examples of ancient typography like Medieval tiles, Phiastos Disc, Pruefening Abbey Inscription, etc. I didn't get that from the books that I read. Of course, I got a lot more detailed info, but that was pretty much useless to me (and boring) because I didn't appreciate it due to my lack of knowledge in that area. However, I did enjoy looking at the ornate pictures included in the books.

Annotated Bibliography on the History of the Dictionary

This post fills a requirement for my current Civilization class.  We were to find several sources on a topic related to printing during the renaissance.  I chose to specialize on how dictionaries changed during the years 1500-1700 AD.  I did most of my research at the Harold B. Lee Library on campus at BYU.  Below is what I found.

L'Imprimerie en le Monde Francophone

In English: The Printing Press in the French World

For our annotated bibliography assignment, I went in with an idea of wanting to do something related to how printing varied from place to place. To begin my search for sources, I skimmed the "notes" for the two sections of Reinventing Knowledge that overlap with the same time span as our print unit: the University and the Republic of Letters. I got nine possible texts from this. Of these nine, six were English texts about Europe, one was on the Islam world (a very interesting sounding work called Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print), and one was on China (yes, I know, that's only eight... I'm going to get there). These last two got me thinking about how I'd like to possibly include a global scale of printing instead of focusing exclusively on Europe. Unfortunately, there was no version of the cool-sounding Islam text to be found. While I did find the Chinese text online through the library's website, I ended up deciding to drop it because of a lack of non-Western books on the subject and because, honestly, it didn't sound nearly as cool as the Islam one (the subtitle was "A Historical Essay" ... come on, that sounds boring even to me).

The last text I thought seemed applicable from the end notes for Reinventing Knowledge was entitled "L'Histoire de la République des Lettres en France" ("The History of the Republic of Letters in France," but you probably could have guessed that...) Now, I wasn't planning on focusing on France an French Europe specifically yet, but keep this in the back of your mind.

The Early British Book Trade (bibliography)

          Of the topics listed by Professor Burton, the workings of the book trade fascinated me. I had already blogged a little bit about how I thought that writing and publishing must have seriously influenced the economic processes of the day. My research ended up focusing on the effects of these things in early Britain. It was interesting to me to see how the sources I found all seemed to end up pointing toward the same general line of research. This was illuminated particularly when I found a book that listed one or two of my previous sources in its own bibliography. Another helpful insight I gained was the value of this kind of research. As a new kid on the researching scene, my previous experience has been limited to google searches. This project opened my eyes to the different tools at my disposal for research. So without further ado, here is my annotated bibliography.

History of Printed Illustration and Woodcuts: Brianne Burraston, Annotated Bibliography

I started my bibliography with a general search in the library related to printing, unsure of what I first wanted to research. My search on printing lead me to section ZE on the fifth floor of the library where I found a plethora of material on the printing press. I opened a book and flipped through the pages to find a subject that interested me. However, due to the obscurity and specificity of the subject, I had difficulty creating a bibliography. Thus, I decided to go back to the shelves and browse and came across illustrations and woodcuts. This caught my attention and inspired this bibliography.




1. Chappel, Warren, A Short History of the Printed Word, The New York Times 1970 (Found through browsing the shelves at the HBLL)

• This author discusses the origins and techniques of printing from medieval times through the twentieth century. Focusing on his chapters regarding wood cuts, he discusses the history of wood cuts and the impact wood cut illustrations had for artists and social status, and the economic benefits of wood cuts. He provides background on how wood cuts were made in the sixteenth century and also discusses how illustrated books changed the emphasis to the art rather than the text. 

2. Goldschmidt, Earnst Ph. The Printed Book of the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, 1950 (Found through browsing the shelves at the HBLL)

• This book goes through the history of print illustration beginning with the medieval era, where non-print illustration originated. It traces the history of illustration prints and how they increased their efficiency with the woodcuts. He discusses how woodcut printing was practical knowledge acquired through technical experience and how this intentionally limited the use of wood cuts until artists and printers began to sell them to other cities and countries and it became a large economic business.

3. Lewis, John, Anatomy of Printing, Watson-Guptil Publications, 1970  (found through online HBLL search)

• In Chapter 4: "The reformation and the printing press: artists take an interest in the printed illustration," Lewis discusses some of the unexpected benefits of the printed illustration. For example, the printing press accelerated ideas not only through words, but through illustrations. He discusses the social benefit of illustrations that allowed the illiterate to understand ideas through pictures. He also addresses the economic benefit to printers of using the same illustration for multiple works. 

4. Morrison, Stanley and Jackson, Holbrook. A Brief Survey of Printing History and Practice, New York, 1923 (found through browsing the shelves at the HBLL)

•  This source offers a brief history of woodcutting and illustrations in the sixteenth century Europe. He discusses the use of the printer's trade-mark as an illustration used to distinguish works and continues to discuss the evolution of the technology regarding printing and illustrations through the mid-twentieth century.

   5.  Gascoigne, Bamber. How to Identify Prints : A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Ink Jet (found with through online Google Scholar search, then searched and found on HBLL webpage, and then read in person in the HBLL)

• This book gives a thorough history of the printed illustration while covering the technical vocabulary. It details the print illustration techniques used throughout the years. The illustrations in the book itself aid the reader in understanding a more technical understanding of the history and process of the printed illustration. Wood cuts were at their peak use in the sixteenth century, declined, and then began to be used again in the eighteenth century when a more efficient technique was developed.

6.  Cole, Richard G. "The Use of Reformation Woodcuts by Sixteenth-Century Printers as a Mediator Between The Elite and Popular Culture", Journal of Popular Culture, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Company, 2000 (Found online through google search and HBLL search, then read in person)

• This article offers sociological insight into how woodcutting and illustration affected social roles in society. It discusses various insights into how the printer of the sixteenth century served as a mediator between the elite and popular culture through using both " early modern" and early folklore images in their prints.

7.Eichenberg, Fritz, The art of the print: masterpieces, history, techniques, Harry. N. Abrams, Incorprorated, 1976 (found through bibliography of How to Identify Prints then read in person)

• This book details the world history of print and illustration from early Chinese prints to modern day. He discusses the simplicity of the wood cutting technique and how its popularity spread. He then details the specific technique of early wood cut artists complete with illustrations of their works.