Printing in the Western world began with Johann Gutenberg and his monumental Bible of 1455. The invention of printing from movable type changed the production of books from being written out by hand, one at a time, to printed editions as we know them today. This led to a vast increase in the publication of books, encompassing a multitude of both religious and secular subjects. Books printed in the fifteenth century, known as incunabula (a term which refers to "the cradle" of printing), are prized as artifacts of the infancy of printing ...
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Los Angeles: Kenneth Karmiole, Bookseller, Inc. 1985. Quarto. ix, 22, (2)pp. One of 159 copies with an original leaf inserted from the elder Zainer's edition of Hugo Ripelin's Compendium Theologiae Veritatis, Liber Quintus, printed in Ulm circa 1478-81. Translated from the German by Ruth Schwab-Rosenthal and with an introduction by... More
Los Angeles: Kenneth Karmiole, Bookseller, 1981. Quarto. 28pp. One of 164 copies. Scriptores Astronomici Veteres is a collection of Greek and Roman astrological texts, of which the most important is Maternus's Mathesis, the most extenstive astrological book from antiquity. Here, the original leaf is from Liber Octavus, printed by Aldus... More
San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1938. Quarto. 53pp. One of 297 copies printed for the Book Club of California by Edwin and Robert Grabhorn. Tipped-in is a leaf from the Polycronicon, with a rubricated initial on the recto and verso. It contains a passage on the campaigns of Cyrus the Great... More
Chicago: (Lakeside Press), 1905. Quarto. 118pp. One of 252 copies printed for the Caxton Club by the Lakeside Press. This copy contains a leaf from Caxton's first edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but it is not one of the148 copies originally issued with the leaf in an envelope at the... More
Akron & Evanston: Bruce Ferrini /Hamill & Barker, 1993. Folio. 40pp. One of 166 copies. With an original leaf from the fourth edition of the Latin Bible, printed by Gutenberg's successors. The leaf contains text from Deuteronomy 9:17 through 12:6, a significant passage in which Moses returns from Mount Sinai... More
Los Angeles: Plantin Press for Bernard Rosenthal and Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, 1971. Folio. 13pp. One of 193 copies printed for Bernard Rosenthal and Zeitlin & Ver Brugge at the Plantin Press, with an original leaf printed on vellum by Peter Schoeffer at Mainz in 1472. It is one of... More
Los Angeles: Plantin Press for Dawson's Book Shop, 1950. Tall quarto. 62pp. One of 300 copies printed by the Plantin Press for Dawson's Book Shop. The leaf is from the portion of the Chronicle on the sixth age of the world. It bears two woodcuts on the recto and six... More
NY: Brick Row Book Shop, 1936. Folio. (6), 28pp. Library Edition. Contains an original leaf from the Catholicon of 1460, the production of which, as Stillwell argues in the essay within, should be credited to Johannes Gutenberg (some have argued that the second printing was achieved by Peter Schoeffer in... More
San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1938. Quarto. (2)ff.,15pp. One of 260 copies. The original leaf is from folio ccxiii of the Pynson 1509 edition. The essay by James D. Hart is decorated on each page with charming color-printed facsimiles of woodcut fools. Leaf lightly stained, else fine. Bound in linen-backed printed... More
London: Maggs Bros. Ltd. 1938. Quarto. Catalogue No. 656. Edges darkened and worn, with some loss and soiling, and binding loosening. Good. More
Los Angeles: Department of Special Collections, University Research Library, UCLA, 1992. Quarto. Fine stapled packet. More
Berlin: Wiegendruck-Gesellschaft, 1936. Large octavo. Edges chipped, some splitting to spine and soiling, else very good in plain cream wrappers. More
NY: Grolier Club, 1887. 12mo. Printed at the DeVinne Press. Wrappers lightly soiled and darkened at edges, else near fine. More
NY: Grolier Club, 1968. Quarto. 66pp., (6)ff. From an edition of 1650 copies, this is one of 1500 hardcover copies. Fine in gilt-stamped tan cloth with original glassine dust wrapper, which shows some splits at edges. More
Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1925-1935. Quarto. Seven volumes. lxiii, 682; xi, 786; xxxiv, 754; viii, 694; x, 742; viii, 854; 287pp. The first seven volumes of this exhaustive catalog of incunabula, which were printed before the interruption of World War II. Volumes 1-3, 5-6 bound in matching blue cloth; volume 4 unbound;... More
London: Maggs Bros. Ltd. 1930. Quarto. Catalogue No. 533. Edges darkened and worn, with some soiling, and binding loosening. Very good. More
Paris: Les Éditions G. Van Oest, 1928. Large quarto. Text followed by 78 plates. Near fine in printed wrappers that show some wear and soiling. More
London: Holland Press, 1961. Two quarto volumes, paginated continuously. (600)pp.; 601-1096, (lxx)pp. One of 250 copies. Illustrated in black & white throughout. A reprint of the 1910 first edition. Fine in gilt-stamped green cloth. More
Oxford: Bibliographical Society, 1943. Small quarto. 143pp. Spine faded and edges worn, else very good in gray wrappers. Corrigenda laid in. More
Boston, Massachusetts: Trustees of the Public Library, 1935. Quarto. Very fine in green wrapper, pages lightly tanned. More
London: Bibliographical Society, 1954. Folio. Cloth-backed paper-covered boards show minor edgewear, else fine, with chipped and worn dust wrapper. More
NY: Bibliographical Society of America, 1972. Quarto. 112pp. Minor edgewear and fading of spine, else fine in gilt-stamped red cloth. No dust jacket. More
Urbana: University of Illinois, 1927; 1952. Two large octavo volumes. The first volume contains an appendix with Jacob Schenk's translation of the Encheiridion, published in Basel in 1534, and a facsimile reproduction from the copy in the British Museum. The Supplement is edited by Marian Harman and includes a preliminary... More
Venice: Heironymous Scotus, 1550-1551. Quarto. 75ff. Woodcut device on title page and last leaf, several geometrical text figures, two ten-line and two five-line initial capitals. A book of commentary by the sixth-century Greek philosopher Philoponus, who also went by the name John the Grammarian for his scholarship on language. Although... More
Paris: Simon du Bois for Geoffrey Tory, 1527. Octavo. 140ff. With twelve woodcut illustrations from thirteen blocks, Tory's "pot cassé" device on title page and colophon, and each page with a four-piece border in twenty-six distinct combinations. The lower blocks of several borders feature coats of arms, including those of... More
