Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/236

226 noticed in some of the typographic work of Dutch printers. The leaves were not nested in sections one within another as was customary: each sheet of two leaves was engraved, printed and folded separately, so as to make a book of ten sections.

The book was intended to illustrate the more important events of the life of David as recorded in the books of Samuel, and in the First and Second Books of Kings. The fac-simile on the preceding page illustrates Hannah presenting Samuel to the priests in the house of the Lord, and Samuel called by the Lord out of sleep. Sotheby classifies it with the block-books of Holland, but Falkenstein attributes it to Germany.

This is a curious block-book of twenty-four pages, of the original edition of which not one perfect copy is known. The leaves of the copy now on the shelves of the British Museum are 3¾ inches wide and 6 inches high. Sotheby, who has carefully examined its construction, says that the twenty-four pages were printed in sections of eight pages on three sheets of paper, with a thin watery ink of a sepia tint. The margins and blanks have been written on with an ink of nearly the same color as that of the printed cuts.

Another copy of this work has been found at Basle, in which, on the letter A (not found in the London copy), may be seen the date 1464. Another copy, in a library at Dresden, has the same date. Renouvier says that these copies, by German engravers, and of inferior execution, are transfers of the original, which was engraved in the Netherlands.

The history of the book in the British Museum is unknown, but it has many evidences of long use in English hands. The cover or binding consists of a double fold of thick parchment, upon the inside of which, between the folds, is written in large English characters, "Edwardus Lowes." On one side of the last leaf is the rough draft of a letter in the English language. The writing, which is found in scraps all over the book, is of