Addendum (plural Addenda) — Material to be included in a book after the text has been typeset. It may be printed separately at the beginning or end of the text or it may be printed on a separate slip of paper.
appendix (plural Appendices) — Matter that is subordinate to the text of a book, printed immediately following the text.
Armorial — A binding or bookplate featuring the coat of arms of a prior owner.
As Issued — A term used to emphasize that a book is in its originally issued condition and format.
Atlas folio — The largest folio size, 17 x 26 inches.
Backstrip — The spine or backbone of a book.
Bibliography — 1) The study of books as physical objects; 2) A list of books on a particular topic; 3) A list of works consulted by an author.
Bibliophile — A lover of books. Literally, a friend of books and usually a collector of them.
Black Letter — Also Gothic. A general term used to describe the group of heavy scripts which developed in Europe in the twelfth century.
Blindstamping — A design and/or lettering impressed on the covers of a book without the use of gold or color.
Boards — The sides of a book, usually made of very heavy cardboard.
Bookplate — A printed label designating ownership, usually pasted in the inside front cover of a book.
Book Sizes — See Format.
Bound Book — A book with the boards attached to the contents before it is covered with cloth or leather. The term usually includes modern cased books.
Broadside — In strict terms, a sheet of paper printed only on one side.
Calf — Leather made from the hide of a calf with a smooth finish. Naturally light tan in color but often dyed various colors. The most common leather used to bind books.
Cased Book — A book for which the boards and their covering material have been manufactured beforehand, usually in quantity. The contents are held together by a strip of cloth (the mull or super) glued to the spine and then to the inside of the boards.
Clamshell Box — A protective box which completely encloses a book. Usually, the spine is made to resemble that of a book.
Condition — The current state of preservation. Determination of condition is at best an inexact art. Completeness, unless stated otherwise, may always be assumed. The condition of the binding is usually noted first and, if the condition of the contents is different, a note to that effect follows. Most modern books are assigned a single descriptive term within which condition of the covers and contents are encompassed. The usual designations of condition are:
As New/Mint — A book as bright and crisp as the day it was made, with no signs of wear or defects.
Very Fine — Nearly new, with minimal signs of use or wear. In practical terms the finest condition in which an older book may be found.
Fine — A nice clean copy, with only slight signs of use or wear.
Very Good — Some wear but without serious defects.
Good — An average used and worn book, complete.
Reading Copy — Poor condition but usable.
Contemporary — When applied to bindings, annotations, etc., the term means accomplished at or near to the time when the book was published.
Cropped — A book whose margins have been severely trimmed by the binder. Usually, the text has been affected.
Deckle Edge — The rough uneven edge of paper made by hand, caused by the pulp flowing between the frame and deckle of the paper mold. The deckle is the band which confines the paper in the mold during its manufacture.
Dentelle — A French term meaning lace. In bookbinding it is used to describe a border with a lacy pattern usually applied to the inner edges of a book in gilt.
Diced — A term used to describe a pattern of diamonds or small squares impressed in blind on the leather covers of a book.
Disbound — A book lacking its original, or later, binding.
Doublure — A lining of tooled leather, watered silk or vellum affixed to the inside covers of a book.
Dust Jacket (or Dust Wrapper) — The paper covering, usually printed and often in color, which is wrapped around the covers of a book to protect it from wear and soiling.
Edges — The three outer edges of the leaves of a book.
Elephant Folio — An obsolete book size, usually 23 x 14 inches.
Endpapers — The leaves of paper added to the front and back of a book by the binder. The outer leaf is pasted to the inside covers and is termed the pastedown. The inner leaf or leaves are termed free endpapers.
Engraving — An illustration or decorative device printed intaglio from a metal plate or in relief from a woodblock.
Erratum (plural Errata) — Errors made by the printer or author, discovered after the book has been printed, sometimes also called corrigenda. Often printed on a separate slip of paper which is inserted or tipped into the book.
Ex Library — A book once in an institutional library with some or all of the appurtenant identification markings.
Ex Libris — See Bookplate.
Flyleaf — In strict terms, an added blank leaf immediately following the free front endpaper but often used to describe the free front endpaper itself.
Folio — See Format.
Foredge — The outer edge of a book, parallel to the backstrip or spine.
Format — In common terms, the size and shape of a book. In bibliographic terms it is employed to indicate the size of a book determined by the number of times that the printed sheets composing it have been folded, as follows:
Folio — Each printed sheet is folded once.
Quarto — Each printed sheet is folded twice.
Octavo — Each printed sheet is folded three times.
The methods of folding smaller format books often differ, so no standard formula can be given. Since in the early days of printing the size of the printed sheet differed greatly, numerous terms were employed, usually different in each country, to describe these subdivisions of size. Modern books are more uniform in size and the following terms are those most often employed:
Folio (F°) Over 13 inches or 33 centimeters tall.
Quarto (4to)— Over 11 inches or 28 centimeters tall.
Octavo (8vo)— Over 8 inches or 20 centimeters tall.
Duodecimo (12mo)— Over 7 inches or 18 centimeters tall.
Sextodecimo (16mo)— Over 6 inches or 15 centimeters tall.
Vigesimoquarto (24mo)— Over 5 inches or 13 centimeters tall.
Trigesimosecundo (32mo)— Over 4 inches or 10 centimeters tall.
Foxed — A term describing paper which is discolored or stained, usually with brownish yellow spots. It is caused by chemical impurities in the paper.
Frontispiece — An illustration almost always facing the title.
Full Bound — A book entirely covered in one material, usually leather.
Galleys — Long sheets of paper bearing proofs of unpaged type composition.
Gathering (or Section, Signature, or Quire) — The group of leaves formed after the printed sheet has been folded to the size of the book but before it is combined in proper sequence with its fellows for bindings.
Gilt Edges — Book edges which have been trimmed smooth and covered with gold leaf. Rarely, untrimmed page edges are found gilt. The gold leaf serves to seal the page edges and prevents dust and foreign matter from soiling the pages. Often only the top edge is gilt.
Goatskin — See Morocco.
Gold Leaf — The traditional material used to letter book spines, for gold tooling and for gilding page edges.
Gold Tooling — The impression of a design applied by hand with heated metal tools upon gold leaf that has been laid on the cover or spine of a book.
Grained Leather — Tanned animal skin which has been treated to accentuate the natural grain or which has been impressed with metal dies to produce an artificial grain, usually that of a more expensive leather.
Gutter Margins — The inner margins of facing pages of a book.
Half Bound — Usually a book with the back and corners covered in one material, most often leather, and the sides in another material, most often decorative paper or cloth.
Half Cloth — A half bound book with cloth-covered spine and corners.
Half Leather — A half bound book with the spine and corners covered with leather. Morocco and calf are the leathers most often used in this style of binding. Traditionally, only the top edge is gilt in this style of binding; more often all the page edges are stained or marbled.
Half Title — The leaf preceding the title page and frontispiece, if any, upon the recto of which is printed a usually abbreviated version of the title. Its purpose is the protect the title page from damage. Sometimes also called the bastard title or fly title.
Halftone — A term used to describe a type of reproduction of continuous tone illustrations, most often photographs, which is accomplished by reducing the image to a series of tiny dots. The image can then be printed at the same time as type thus combining low cost with good reproductive quality. Though it is by far the most common method now used to depict coins, an inherent weakness is that, under magnification, all one sees are dots. To some extent, computer enhancement and multiple printing impressions can alleviate this deficiency.
Headband — A narrow, decorative band, usually made of colored thread, attached inside the top and sometimes the bottom of the spine of a book. Originally employed to strengthen the binding it persists today almost entirely as decoration.
Headpiece — A printed decorative device or vignette printed in the blank space above the beginning of a chapter of a book.
Hinges — The junction between the two halves of the endpapers of a book where the body of the book is attached to its covers. See also Joints.
Holland — A plain-woven linen fabric used to bind books, known after the country where it was first manufactured.
Holograph — A manuscript written entirely in the hand of the author.
Incunable — The English form of Incunabulum.
Incunabulum (plural Incunabula) — Literally "things in the cradle," the term has come to mean books produced during the infancy of printing, a period somewhat arbitrarily terminated at the end of the year 1500. Modern usage encompasses the beginnings of printed literature in specific fields: thus numismatic books printed in the early to mid-1500s and philatelic literature from the mid-1800s might respectively be termed numismatic and philatelic incunabula.
Inscribed Copy — Unless otherwise qualified, this term means that a book has been inscribed and/or autographed by the author.
Interleaved — A book bound with blank leaves alternating with the printed leaves, usually intended to allow for handwritten notes and additions. Thin translucent paper tipped in the gutter margins of plates are more properly termed Tissue Guards.
Japanese Vellum (or Japon Vellum) — Thick handmade paper with an ivory color made in Japan. Types made in Europe are often termed Japon Vellum.
Joints — The exterior junction of the spine of a book with its sides. See also Hinges, a term describing the same interior junction.
Label (or Lettering Piece) — Usually leather or paper upon which is printed or impressed in gilt or blind the title and often the author of a book. It is then trimmed to size and affixed to the spine, or sometimes the front cover of a book.
Large Paper Copy — One of a usually small number of copies on larger size than that used on the bulk of the edition. The paper used is often of superior quality and often such copies are intended for presentation, for subscribers, or for sale at a higher price than the standard edition.
Leaf — A piece of paper comprised of one page on its front side (Recto) and another page on its back (Verso).
Leather — Skin from any of a number of animals, treated and often artificially colored for use in covering books.
Leatherette — A bookbinding material artificially produced to simulate grained leather.
Lettering Piece — See Label.
Levant — Premium quality morocco with a distinctive, open grain, given a high polish and used mostly in fine bookbinding.
Limp Binding — A style of binding books with thin, flexible covers made without boards. Sometimes cloth is used but more often vellum or leather is employed.
Manuscript — A work written by hand.
Marbled — A term used to describe the decorating of book edges or sheets of paper by transferring to them colors floating on the surface of a gum or size solution. The colors are drawn out with a stick or comb into often intricate patterns. Its use for endpapers gained favor in mid-seventeenth century Europe and it was the commonest material used for covering the sides of half and quarter bound books of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Margins — The four blank borders which enclose and give emphasis to the type area of the page of a book. According to their location the four margins are known as inner or gutter, head or top, foredge or outer, and tail or foot. Margins are an important component of the aesthetics of book design.
Mint — A numismatically inspired term used to describe a second-hand book in immaculate, as new condition.
Misbound — A leaf or gathering which has been misplaced or incorrectly folded by the binder.
Monograph — A treatise on a single topic.
Morocco — Sumach-tanned goatskin which has been treated to accentuate the grain, glazed and polished. A handsome, durable leather, it was first produced by the Arabs of North Africa, particularly in Libya and Morocco, hence its name. It comes in a wide variety of colors and grains and is often used for fine bindings.
Mottled Calf — Calfskin used to cover books which have been given an irregular finish by staining the leather with blots or flecks of acid.
Mounted — Damaged leaves which have been laid down on or backed with paper. Also engravings, illustrations, photographs, etc. which have been pasted or attached to the pages of a book.
Niger — A durable but soft kind of morocco often used for fine bookbinding. It has a fine, variable grain and the slight variation in color and grain give it a quality difficult to imitate.
Offprint — A separate printing of an article or paper which first appeared in a larger publication. Sometimes given its own pagination.
Pagination — The sequence of numerals used to identify the pages of a book.
Panelled — A term used to describe bindings in which a rectangle has been defined by gilt or blind ruled lines, called fillets, on the sides of a book. Spine panels occupy the space between the raised bands and the joints of a binding.
Paper Covers (or Card Covers) — A type of binding in which paper covers are glued, sewn or stapled to the spine of a book or pamphlet.
Pastedown — That half of an endpaper which is pasted to the inside covers of a book.
Photogravure — An intaglio printing process for the making by photographic means of an image on etched copper from which it can be printed on to paper.
Plates — Whole-sheet illustrations, usually printed separately from the text, most often on rectos only.
Polished Calf — Calfskin which has been given a high finish for use in fine bookbinding, often found on seventeenth and eighteenth century French bindings.
Presentation Copy — A book spontaneously given to its recipient by the author. If requested by the recipient, it is more properly termed an inscribed copy. In both cases it is presumed that the author has written a suitable inscription in the book, most usually on the endpapers or title.
Provenance — The pedigree of a book's previous ownership.
Quarter Bound — A book with its back covered in one material, usually leather or cloth, and the sides in another material, usually decorative paper or cloth.
Raised Bands — Ridges on the spine of a book, usually four or five in number, where leather has been stretched to cover the cords on to which are sewn the sections of the text and which in turn are laced into the boards. On cased books, they are more properly termed false bands.
Rebacked — A book which has had its spine replaced. Employed most often with leather bindings, it may be assumed that the rebacking material is similar in composition and style to the original binding unless stated otherwise. Sometimes enough of the original spine remains to permit its being glued to the back of the new spine.
Recased — A book which has been re-attached to its original binding. Usually, new endpapers are used.
Recto — The upper, or obverse, side of the leaf of a book. Usually the right-hand side page of an opened book though in Oriental books the recto would be on the left. See also Verso.
Reprint — A reproduction or reissue of a work already printed.
Roan — A thin, soft kind of sheepskin tanned in sumach and dyed and finished with a smooth or embossed grain. Often used as a substitute for morocco, it is not nearly as durable.
Russia — A reddish brown leather made from calf or cowhide by a special process and impregnated with birch-bark oil. Normally diced, it is attractive though seldom used today since it is not particularly durable.
Sanserif — Type without serifs.
Self-Covered — A pamphlet whose covers are comprised of the same material as its contents and are an integral part of the signatures of which it is comprised.
Shaken — A term used to describe a book whose contents are no longer firmly attached to its cover.
Sheep — A soft leather, with little grain. It is usually of poor quality and inferior durability.
Signature — The letters, or occasionally numerals, printed in the lower margin of the first (at least) leaf of each gathering or section of the text of a book. Intended to guide the binder in the correct assembly of the book, the term has come to mean, by extension, the gathering or section itself.
Slipcase — A protective box for a book or set of books with one side open so that the spine remains visible.
Sophisticated — A term used to describe an incomplete book which has been made complete by replacing the missing part or parts from another copy.
Spanish Calf — A light calfskin which has been decorated with large flecks of red and green acid dye. The practice originated in Spain.
Spine — The part of a book which remains visible as it stands with its fellows on a shelf. The part of a book which is most usually lettered with the title, author and publisher's name.
Sprinkled (or Speckled) — Calf which has been darkened with small spots of acid. The term also is applied to the page edges of books which have been sprinkled with dye, usually dull red in color.
Square — The inside margin of the covers of a book which extends beyond the edges of the pages and protects them.
Straight-Grain Morocco — Goatskin treated to give it an artificial somewhat parallel pattern of grain.
Tailpiece — A decorative device usually printed in the blank space at the end of a chapter.
Tall Copy — A book whose head and tail margins are larger than other copies from the same printing.
Text Illustrations — Illustrations printed within pages of text as opposed to separately printed plates or insets.
Three-Quarter Binding — A book with the spine and corners generously covered with cloth or leather and the rest of the sides in another material. Theoretically, three-quarters of the width at the top and bottom of the binding should be so covered but, practically, anything much over half is considered a three-quarter binding.
Tipped-In — Lightly attached by paste or glue, usually at the inner edge. Sometimes plates, errata slips and single inserted leaves are tipped-in. More often, the term applies to extraneous material, such as added illustrations, clippings, a letter from the author, etc.
Tissue Guards — See Interleaved.
Title-Page — The page at the beginning of a book giving the title, author's name, publisher and date of publication.
Tope Edge(s) Gilt — See Gilt Edges.
Tree Calf — Calf book covers chemically treated to effect a pattern on the sides resembling a tree and its branches. Popular in the nineteenth century.
Typescript — An original typed manuscript or a copy of it.
Uncut — The page edges of a book which have never been trimmed.
Unopened — A book whose component sections have never been trimmed at the edges or slit open with a paper-knife.
Unsophisticated — A book in its original state as issued. Unrestored in any way. (See Sophisticated).
Vellum — The skin of a newly born calf, kid or lamb, not tanned, but specially treated for writing or printing on, or for binding. Widely used for binding in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
Verso — The back, or reverse, side of the leaf of a book. Usually the lefthand side page of an opened book.
Vignette — An illustration not enclosed in a border in which the edges of the picture usually shade off into the surrounding paper. Often found on the dedication and title-pages of older books.
Watermark — A distinguishing mark or design incorporated into paper during its manufacture and visible when the sheet is held up to bright light.
Woodcut — The earliest form of book illustration in which an impression is taken from an inked wood relief engraving.
Wormholes — Holes made in paper and bindings by the larvae of various beetles.
Wrappers — Paper covers attached to a pamphlet or book and considered to be an integral part of it. Usually printed and on paper different than that of the text.