The general populace seems to harbor a somewhat naive and romantic view of early printing houses, such views no doubt abetted by illustrations such as this 1590 copperplate engraving by Stradanus:
In fact, the earliest printed books in Western Europe were issued by printer-publishers whose employees worked in spaces that often were quite small and cramped. These spaces frequently offered very little light by which to work. The work areas often were freezing cold in winter and swelteringly hot in summer, with little air circulation unless a door or window could be cracked open. The printing done therein frequently was undertaken by illiterate or poorly educated, overworked (or underworked and, therefore, often itinerant) laborers that were (book historians aver) oft times inebriated during their 12-14 hour work day:
Under such circumstances, misprints often were more the rule than the exception. Type might be over- or under-inked. Sheets might be printed with numerous typos, perhaps through a failure to follow copy. (How early printers printed would have a great impact on the standardization of spelling in various vernacular languages). Frisket-bite might lead to pages not being cleanly printed (margins, for example, might be off). Colors might be out-of-register.
And this does not even begin to enumerate the ills to which early printed books were heir, as mistakes made by printer-publishers (these responsibilities eventually were separated) were only part of the mix. Authors, for example, might make changes to a work after a title had been set in type but before the title actually was printed. Or even after a title had been printed, thereby necessitating various cancels and/or errata.
Because corrections often were made in the type after several sheets already had been printed off, corrected and uncorrected sheets often were bound together indiscriminately. Moreover, signatures might be bound out-of-sequence or upside-down. Illustrations might be overlooked. The opportunities for bibliographical mischief -- by printers, authors, binders -- were many.
Modern collectors of antiquarian books tend to be purists.
Before they lay out good money for a book, especially an expensive book, they want assurances that the book they are buying (and the binding and/or jacket in which it is clothed) is authentic.
If there is some sort of standard reference which collates the pages and illustrations of an ideal copy, all such pages and illustrations had better be there. If there are misprints at certain points in the text, those misprints had better be there. If the paper is supposed to have a certain watermark, that watermark had better be there. Any annotations or authorial signatures must be authenticated.
Of course, this often is easier said than done. Previous generations of book collectors, after all, were not always so pure. If their copy of a book lacked a title page, for example, they might insert a title page from another copy of the same edition that had, perhaps, a defective binding. (Alternatively, they might have a facsimile title page created to replace the one that was missing. Facsimile replacements, though, were often intended to deceive. For a counter-example, see the image below.) Ditto for pages inserted upside-down or out-of-order. Ditto for missing illustrations.
Where these sorts of substitutions were made using pages from another copy of the same edition, the result traditionally has been termed a made-up copy.
Such copies can be difficult to spot without careful collation. Unlike substitutions utilizing facsimiles (or pages from a different edition), made-up copies generally were not put together with an intent to deceive--the intent, rather, was to create as perfect a copy as possible (relative to some ideal copy) for one's own collection. (Intent, of course, may be difficult to establish without some sort of corroborating evidence.) Because a made-up copy contains replacement pages from a copy of the same edition, alarms generally are not set off by, for example, differences in paper texture or weight.
John Carter, in his much-cited ABC for Book Collectors, cautions that great care should be exercised in purchasing any book that arouses suspicion, and cites several examples:
...an old book rebound in the 19th century, an unusually fresh but apparently early binding, or any notorious rarity, particularly if it has surfaced in an unexpected place.... The surface and structure of the paper should be observed and if possible compared with a copy whose provenance puts it beyond suspicion. The ink should be examined under a microscope or at least a high-magnification glass for the characteristic craquelure of age. Any discordant element, a single leaf (particularly the title) differing in any way from the rest, must alert special caution....
The example below, via Ellwood Books, obviously was intended to perfect a very scarce book rather than deceive a buyer, as the title page is a facsimile, on ordinary photocopy paper, of a title page taken from a public library's copy of the same edition:
Should you lack the expertise to undertake collations yourself, an independent bookseller who specializes in your area(s) of interest might well prove to be your best friend....
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