Page:Historic printing types, a lecture read before the Grolier club of New York, January 25, 1885, with additions and new illustrations; by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914; Grolier Club.djvu/16

 12 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. Bible of 42 1 1 in - has the first place. Its value as evidence of early skill. terly invention of printing and also of type-making." In this notice, as in other notices by early writers, we find the implication that the real invention of printing was the invention of practical types. One of these books, the Bible of 42 lines, is emphatically The Book, not because it is the Bible and to be regarded as the Book of Books, but because it is generally regarded as the first printed book. It is not only the typographic editio princeps of what had been a manuscript, but princeps facile over all books, in matter as in manner. It stands like a monument at the great turn between the old and the new method of manufacture. It shows the best features of each method the dignity, the quaintness, the decorative beauty of the manuscript, and the superior exactness and uniformity of the printed book. The value of the work may be inferred from the prices paid for it within the last half century from $10,000 to $25,000 a copy, according to condition and circumstances. These seem large sums. But greater prices have been paid for cracked and faded paintings, and for mutilated statues : the sum of $200,000 has been asked in this city for a Ma- donna not larger than a barrel-head, and as much by another dealer for a collection of medieval pottery. The prices are boldly asked because the average buyer has more regard for paintings or pottery than for books. But has not this book a greater value in its history and associa- tions I Is not the first product of an art which has done