Glossary P-Z

page

one side of a leaf in a book or pamphlet (GG)

palladium leaf

a silvery, non-corrosive, expensive, white-metal leaf reserved for very fine book decoration and edge-treatments; “an amalgam leaf resembling silver leaf” (GG, ED)

pamphlet

a short booklet usually printed in large numbers for wide distribution (often polemical in nature), comprising a single gathering; sewn, saddle-stitched, or wire-stitched (stapled); often with a paper wrapper, but not covered per se (GG, ED, JC)

panel

1. any rectangular space within which information or decoration is placed

2. a frame tooled with one-, two- and more parallel lines palleted or filleted (blind or in gold) on the spine or cover of a leather-covered book; the space between raised cords where title, author, etc., and decoration are gold tooled, directly on the leather or on applied labels, a so-called panel back (GG, ED, JC)

panel stamp, panel stamped

an engraved brass large enough to decorate most of the leather-covered board in one application of pressure; from mid-1200s, stamps were made of wood and metal and were blind stamped; later, panel stamping was done in gold; for panel stamping, the leather is moistened and the heated metal panel in positioned face-down on the cover before the whole is placed in a press (GG, ED, JC)

paper boards

in casing bindings, where paper is used as the covering material rather than cloth (GG, JC)

paper covers

thick paper, covering material used without boards, attached to the spine on ordinary, sewn books, with squares or trimmed flush (GG)

papyrus

a rush from which sheets of writing support were made; the stalks of the plant are gathered, cut into smaller sections, and then sliced laterally into thin strips; after soaking in water, the strips are laid in two layers, the second, turned 90°, and overlapping the first; this layer is then pounded together and/or pressed; when dry, the surfaces are usually smoothed and polished with pumice; like paper, papyrus is made of a vegetable fiber, but it otherwise does not resemble paper in that the fibers are not reduced to a pulp and felted; the term “paper” was derived from “papyrus” (GG)

parchment

a thin, rather stiff (compared with leather), white writing (and occasionally printing) support derived from the skins of goats, sheep, and young animals such as kids and calves; unlike leather, parchment is not tanned, but rather dehaired, scrapped, cleaned while stretched on a frame with pumice and degreased with chalk; the key in making parchment is to dry it while tautly stretched; if a thick skin, such as sheep, it is often split, but most parchment has two distinct sides: a smooth, slightly glossy, yellowish grain side, as opposed to the flesh side which is whiter, more matte, and slightly more textured (it is the preferred writing side); when making up book pages, like-sides should face one another across the double page spread; split sheepskin used for parchment is called forel; see Reed (1972) (GG, JC, ED)

pared leather

leather that has been thinned either overall by shaving down or at the edges by chamfering, both with a sharp paring knife; to reduce bulk at the turn-in area along the edge of the covers and the double-thickness of leather at the head and tail of the spine, the edges of the leather piece are pared (GG)

paste papers

decorated papers, used for covering sides and occasionally, for endpapers; made by coating a durable, dampened paper with one or several layers of colored starch paste(s) and either drawing, dragging, pulling, stamping, etc., some pattern into the paste, see Loring (ED)

pasteboard (paste-board, E.)

a binder’s board made up of sheets of waste papers (often printed) pasted or glued together; dates before the use of millboard in the 18th c. (GG, JC)

pastedown (paste-down, E.)

the first/last sheet of paper from the endpapers that is adhered to the upper/lower covers on the inside; separate pieces of paper adhered to the inside covers, sometimes followed with watered silk; the next free sheet of paper is the flyleaf (GG, JC)

perfect

1. sheets of paper printed on both sides; in letterpress, one side is printed at least one day before the other; in special perfecting presses, both sides can be printed at once

2. perfect binding denotes an adhesive binding; the name is probably a derivative of the word “gutta-percha” (GG, RE)

Persian morocco

soft goatskin used for finest bindings; Persian sheep and Persian goat leathers are actually made in India and are not durable (GG)

photogravure

a photomechanical reproduction made and printed in much the same way as etching, except that the resulting image is a tonal print; often used to reproduce images based on other media such as paintings, watercolors, etc. (GG, BG)

photomechanical reproduction

a number of plate-processes to reproduce in large quantities an image, usually a tonal image (BG)

pica

a unit of measure in the American type system; there are about 6 picas to the inch; each pica consists of 12 points (GG)

pigment

a finely ground mineral that is suspended in a vehicle for use as an ink, paint, watercolor painting, etc. (GS)

pin seal

the fine-grained skin of a seal, used for very expensive binding (GG)

pin seal morocco

hand-grained goatskin resembling pin seal (GG)

pinx.

Latin: “painted”; the artist who painted the image that the craftsman is making into a fine print (BG)

plain binding

a plain-looking binding with little or no embellishment made by a job binder (ED)

plate

illustration in a book, often printed differently from the text and tipped-in on a guard, as opposed to a figure which is printed along with the text (GG, JC)

platemark (plate mark, plate-mark, E.)

impression of the beveled edge of an intaglio printing plate into the paper; see intaglio printing press (GG, JC, BG)

pochoir

the application of color by means of tamping with a stencil brush a “dry” gouache or watercolor through a stencil (GG)

pocket edition

a small octavo book, about 6.75 x 4.25 inches (GG)

point

a unit of measure in the American type system; one point is equal to approximately 1/72 inch; there are 12 points to a pica, and therefore about 6 picas to the inch (GG, JC)

pointillé

pattern, design or image made up of dots (JC)

polished calf

highly finished calfskin used in fine bookbinding (GG)

print, printing

1. the act of transferring, numerous times, some kind of image (textual, decorative, and/or pictorial) from one surface to another using ink as the vehicle

2. the individual artifact made from such action (GG, BG)

printed edges

usually advertising copy, this is performed on trimmed edge before any rounding and back on the fore-edge (most often) with “rubber” type [a rubber stamp?] (GG)

printer’s mark

a mark or device that represents a specific printer, just as the publisher’s mark or device identifies a specific publisher (GG)

private press

a small press that occasionally issues limited editions, whose quality is often above that of trade books; often owned by individuals or groups who do not seek profit in the commercial sense, but engage in printing and/or publishing for creative reasons and personal gratification (GG, JC)

privately printed

books issued from either a private press or financed by the author or another individual, printed by a job printer (GG, JC)

privilege

having a licence from a governing agency or authority, which allows the publisher/printer to “make public” a specific work (GG, JC)

proof

the existence of a few pages that lay below the trimmed edges of a book, signifying that the binder has not cropped the edges (GG, ED)

prospectus

a printed leaflet or broadside describing a forthcoming book; often with a specimen paper, illustration, and/or table of contents; first issued in 1469 (GG)

publish

simply, to make public, usually in many copies and distributed for sale (GG, JC)

publisher

an individual or a group of individuals (a company or group) that is in business to finance the production of books and other printed matter to sale to the public (or members of a group), either for profit or not; prior to the 19th c., publishers, in the preceding sense, were rare and the activities of publishing were more commonly assumed by authors, job printers, governments, and booksellers (GG)

publisher’s binding

in America from the early 19th c., a binding done in the same materials and decoration for the entire edition (or in batches); the specific binding is designed, arranged, and paid for by the publisher; prior to the 19th c., sheets were purchased from the printer by booksellers who would have the books either temporarily sewn/bound or would sell books in sheets (or in a temp. binding) to the owner, who would arrange for the permanent binding in his/her preferred style or the prevailing style for the times and/or genre of work (GG)

publisher’s cloth

a large range of book cloth used to cover cases for publisher’s bindings, since about 1830 in America, see Allen (1976, 1994), Tanselle (1970), Sadleir (1990) (GG, JC)

publisher’s mark

a mark or device that represents a specific publisher, just as the printer’s mark or device identifies a specific printer (GG)

quarter binding, quarter-bound

a binding format where the spine is covered in one material while almost all of the sides are covered in another (no corners are covered), e.g., quarter-bound leather with paper sides (GG, JC)

quarto

a book format consisting, traditionally, of a sheet of paper folded twice so that there are 4 leaves and 8 pages; in modern practice, a book size ranging between 8.5 x 7 and 11 x 15 inches (GG, ED, JC)

railway edition

a cheap edition of a popular work sold at bookstalls in railroad stations, often in a small, pocket-size format (GG)

raised bands

raised cords that are covered, becoming an element of the spine (GG, JC)

raised cords

the sewing supports that lay against the back of the book (GG)

ream

a common quantity of paper sold, consisting of from 480 to 500 sheets (GG)

rebacked book (re-backed, E.)

a book that has had its original spine material replaced by the same kind of material or something else, such as cloth for a leather spine (GG, JC)

recessed cords

cords that are sunken below the plane of the back by first sawing grooves (usually two or three) into the back; after sewing, the back is flat; if the look of raised cords is desired, false cords (or bands) have to be made up and applied to the back of the hollow before covering (GG, ED)

recto

1. the right-hand page in a book, always odd-numbered; front of a leaf

2. the primary side of a single sheet; the top side of a single sheet of paper (the felt side) or a piece of parchment or papyrus, whether printed or written on or not (GG, JC)

red under gilt edges

Edges that are “sprayed” with a red dye before gold leaf is applied; seen most often in devotional books (GG)

register

1. the list of signature letters, words or numbers found in the book, usually printed at the end of the book in early printed books

2. in register: two impressions or images lying exactly over one another

3. signet; bound-in ribbon bookmark

4. entering a copyright (GG, ED, JC)

reinforced binding

for heavy-use books, e.g., public library, the joints of a book are strengthened (GG)

remainders

those books from a slow- or non-selling edition that are sold to a book distributor for sale at much-reduced prices; any binding placed on a remainder book is called the remainder binding, which often differs considerably from the original edition binding (GG)

remboîté, remboîtage (F.)

the replacement of an original binding with another, usually more elegant, often for fraudulent reasons; no English term that is equivalent (GG, JC)

repp finish

wove paper into which is impressed a ribbed pattern to simulate laid paper; seen in some 1840s papers (GG, APPA)

ribbon-embossed book-cloth

1835–1842; raised designs made in book-cloth by pressing the material between male and female dies performed in a fly embossing press; once embossed, the material was adhered to case, and lettering and additional stamping in relief could be performed; patterns seen in ribbon-embossed cloth usually consisted of flower, leaves, vines, etc., often with a fine rib grain pattern background, usually diagonally oriented; common colors were blue and green, Allen

roan

trade name for a thin, cheap, soft, nondurable sheepskin that is sumac-tanned, as a cheap substitute for morocco (ED, GG, JC)

roman

any typeface design that is upright, as opposed to sloped letter-designs such as italic and script faces; never capitalized; GG is erroneous in stating that “roman” does not pertain to black- or gothic letter style, it does, and the so-called humanistic typefaces similar to the one you are reading now is more properly termed “Roman,” because it was based on letter forms chiseled into Roman stone monuments (so-called lapidary letter forms) (GG, PG)

rough calf

rather than the grain side being the side seen on a binding, the flesh, suede-like side is out; polished (GG, JC)

rough gilt edges

1. gilding the edge(s) before the book is sewn

2. to emulate deckle edges on machine-made paper, the fore-edge and tail edge of the book are trimmed slightly, or roughly opened with a knife, while the top edge is cut smooth to open the pages; at least the fore-edge is rough gilt; only the head edge can be burnished (GG, ED, JC)

roundel

a double-line circle with a center dot (ED)

rounding

the process preceding backing; after sewing and pasting-up the back, the book lies flat on the table and the fore-edge pulled toward the binder which causes the back to fan forward, coaxed gently by a backing hammer; this creates a round configuration to one half of the back, and the procedure is repeated with the book turned the other way up; thus flexed and slightly rounded, the book can now be lined (saddleback) or backed into a permanent concave shape extending to the outer edge of the boards (GG, ED)

rubric, rubricated, rubricator

chapter, section, or other division title written or printed in red, while the text is in black (GG, JC)

rule

strips of brass, type-high, used to print a single line or a line of a simple pattern, measured across in points; used for separating contents on a title page, for example, and for boxes, where the ends are mitered for a neat corner; if more ornamental and broader, often referred to as Linotype rule slides or Monotype dashes (GG, JC)

run-up spine

refers to the spine of a book that has two parallel lines tooled along the length of the joints and across the spine, forming panels; done with a two-line roll and a pallet (GG)

Russia cowhide (russia cowhide, E.)

inferior Russia leather made of cowhide and given a straight grain; from 1691, other leathers tanned and impregnated with a phenolic oil distilled from a European birch to resemble Russia leather (GG)

Russia leather (russia leather, E.)

a reddish-brown calfskin, impregnated with an aromatic oil distilled from a birch tree, tanned with willow bark, and dyed with sandalwood; originated in Russia; popular in England from 1730 to 1840; tends to dry out and become friable; often tooled or grained between plates with a diaper or diced pattern (crossed diagonal lines, forming diamonds) (GG, ED, JC )

saddle-stitching

sewing booklets and pamphlets through the fold by placing the gatherings over a saddle in a sewing machine (GG, ED)

scratted paper

splashing small blobs of color onto paper, like marbling; used for endpapers (GG)

seal grain leather

split sheepskin grained to resemble seal (GG)

section

1. a gathering with any accompanying tipped-in plates and other inserts, awaiting collation and gathering before sewing (GG)

2. see gathering (GG, ED, JC)

self endpapers

endpapers that are the same paper as the text paper (GG)

self-wrapper

the upper and lower “cover” of a pamphlet or booklet printed as part of the text (GG)

semis, seme, semé, semée

decoration of randomly sprinkled, small ornaments; from heraldry; French semer: to sow (GG, ED, JC)

serial

a book published in parts appearing at regular intervals; often preceding publication in book form, e.g., many of Dickens’s works were first read as serials printed in magazines (GG, JC)

series binding

similar bindings issued by a publisher for a series of works, often related by subject or genre (GG)

serigraphy

a printing process involving masking out nonprinting areas on a screen stretched over a frame, allowing ink to be squeegeed through the open areas onto the paper below (BG)

shaved edges

edges of book that have been more than trimmed but not as severely ploughed as in cropping (JC)

side-stitch

with thread or wire, attaching a pamphlet or book together by working from front to rear, usually in a series of holes running parallel to the inner margin, not through the fold(s) (GG)

sides

the outer surfaces of the upper and lower boards (GG)

signature

1. a printed notation on the first page of each gathering of a book, either a letter and/or numeral, usually located in the bottom margin, under the last line of the text, near the gutter

2. in America, an alternative term for a gathering, which is preferred to avoid confusing with 1. signature

3. a gathering without any accompanying plates, etc. (GG)

(GG, ED, JC)

Alternate terms:	2. gathering
See also:	3. section

signed binding

the name of the binder either:

1. palleted in gold (or sometimes, blind) on the inside of the upper cover of a book, usually on the turn-in

2. palleted in gold (or blind) at the foot of the spine

3. printed a small printed label, called a binder’s ticket, located on an inside cover (not to be confused with the bookseller’s ticket)

4. embossed in blind on the front flyleaf; the latter two falling during the period 1850–1860, see Allen (RBS Course Timeline) (GG, JC)

signet (F.)

a ribbon, usually silk, incorporated into the binding and used as a bookmark (GG, ED)

silver leaf

silver leaf generally was not used because of its tendency to tarnish, but can occasionally be found on books dating in the early 1850s; other white metal leafs were used including palladium, see Allen (RBS Course Timeline)

sixteenmo

a book format consisting, traditionally, of a sheet of paper is folded so that there are 16 leaves and 32 pages; in modern practice, a book size about 6.75 x 4.5 inches (GG, ED)

sixties book

specifically refers to books whose binding designs appeared in English trade books of the 1860s (JC)

size

1. tub-, surface- or external sizing: gelatin or starch solution applied to dry paper to seal the surfaces and prevent penetration of inks, etc.

2. internal sizing: rosin soap with alum added to the beater (or engine, as in engine sizing); precipitated onto the fibers and set as an adhesive in the paper when dried over heated drums; provides internal strength, but paper still needs to be externally sized for most purposes; very acidic often leading to brittle paper, especially in presence of large quantities of lignin found groundwood (mechanical wood) pulp papers

3. a thinned adhesive used to provide tack, e.g., for gold leaf applications (GG, APPA, ED, JC)

size staining

compared to foxing, these stains are larger with amorphous shapes and irregular edges; probably due to deteriorated sizing in/on the sheet, and/or the transfer of bad sizing from sheet to sheet during dampening and letterpress or intaglio printing; exacerbated by damp and dirty storage conditions (RE)

skewings

excess gold leaf brushed off covers; collected in a rubbing-off chest or from under slanted wooden floors and sent off to be refined into gold (GG)

skiver

an nondurable, thin leather used for the very cheapest of leather bindings, as well as for labels, etc., of the outer half, grain and flesh sides, of a split sheepskin, tanned with sumac, and finished through graining and polishing to resembled better leathers; used in England from 1768; when worn is difficult to distinguish skiver from roan (GG, ED, JC)

slipcase (slip case, E.)

a five-sided, protective container with the front open to slip in a book, spine-side out (GG, ED, JC)

slips

the frayed and splayed ends of cords before they are adhered to the inside of the covers (GG, ED)

smooth calf

untooled calfskin binding (GG)

smooth-washed cloth

book-cloth that is not grained with some kind of pattern (GG)

Smyrna morocco

sheepskin grained to resemble morocco (GG)

Spanish calf

a light-colored calf, ideal for staining with a brilliant dye, usually in dashes or large flecks of color (GG, JC)

spine

the outer area of the book that covers and protects the back; the area that carries the title, author’s name, etc. and is exposed on the bookshelf; often shows marked difference in fading and deterioration because of exposure to air, light, and heat compared with the rest of the book (GG, ED, JC)

split skin

thick skin, usually from sheep, split laterally to yield either a thinner outer leather or parchment with a grain and a flesh side with the other part discarded, or two skins, one with a grain and a flesh side, and another with two flesh sides, see Reed (ED)

sprinkled calf

calfskin that has been decorated by sprinkling acid on it, often using a bundle of twigs dipped in the acidic solution; if classical gold tooled ornaments added, called Etruscan style (GG, ED, JC)

sprinkled edges

usually all three trimmed edges are sprinkled or splattered with color ink(s) while the book is clamped tight (ED, JC)

squares

the margins of the book cover that extent beyond the textblock when the book is closed; this protects the edges (GG, ED, JC)

stab-sewing, stab-stitching

holes are pierced near the edge of the back, either for one or a few gatherings, from the front through to the back, and then fastened with thread; wire-stitching and stapling in the same manner; the pamphlet or book cannot open flat; sometimes used as a temporary sewn fastening of small books before the final binding is done (GG, ED, JC)

stamping press

later version of arming press; gas-heated platen to keep stamps at regular temperature for stamping blind, gold leaf, or inks on book covers (GG)

stereotype

from Greek: solid or fixed type; a relief printing plate that is used as a substitute for set pages of moveable type or a block; after the form(s) of type are set, one of three methods can be used to make the stereoplate: 1. the form(s) placed in a casting box and plaster of Paris is poured into it making a mould or matrix, once dry, the plaster cast shrinks away from the type enough to remove it and then cast a plate with molten type metal (lead, tin, antimony); 2. wet papier mâché is pushed into the set or block within a frame, then used as a mould for casting a plate; or 3. flong, layers of soft papers, are beaten into the type or block, dried, and used as a matrix for casting the plate; papier mâché and flong have the advantage of being useful for several castings and for being flexible enough to be cast curved for use on rotary presses); corrections are made in the plate by drilling out the offending letter and soldering in the correct one, usually causing a bold or light letter on printing; to make the plate useable, the back is filled with type metal to a predetermined thickness (not usually type high as this would involve too much metal and render the plates very heavy, even when cut into individual pages); experimented with in late 17th c., but not commercially viable until the early 1800s in England, in America, by 1813 (GG, JC)

stilted covers

a book bound in taller covers than usual so it matches height of other books (