Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/334

* BOOK-PLATE.
 * i96

BOOKSELLING. arms and the name and motto of the owner, with surrounding foliations originally intended to represent the slashed mantle of the hehiiet. The Jacobean style, extending approximately from 1700 to 1750, is very formal and heavy; its ornamentation resembles carved wood, and the right and left sides of the design usually coin- cide with precision. About 1750 came in the Chippendale style, so called from the well-known designer and upholsterer of furniture. Light, graceful ellects took the place of the sombre designs ; fruit and llowers, even pictures of mead- ows and streams with shepherdesses and swains were introduced. Tliis was succeeded by the ril>bon and wreath style, whose simple, chaste manner well expressed contemporaneous changes of manners and forms. At a date difficult to give, but toward the middle of the Eighteenth Century, bookmen and engravers began to show more individuality in their book-plate designs; the portrait and the pictorial plate came in; li- brary interiors an<l many allusions to classical allegory and to the feats of arms or peaceful pleasures of the owners are frequently found ; while landscapes and rivers, castles and ruined abbeys contribute to the variety of the pictured scenes. Such names as Hogarth, JIarshall, Ver- tue, Bartolozzi, and Bewick are signed on Eng- lish book-plates. The book-plates first used in America were of English make, brought over by the wealthy colo- nists. They possess great interest as meinorials of the old families: but the plates engraved by the hands of our first American engravers, Nathaniel Hurd and Paul Revere, of Boston, Amos Doolittle, of Connecticut, and Alexander Anderson, of Xew York (the last of more recent date but the first to engrave on wood ), easily surpass them in value. The earliest date on an American book-plate by an American engraver is 1749, on the Thomas Dering plate engraved by llurd. There were numerous early engravers through the Xew England Colonies and States, and in and around Xew York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, whose work is highly prized by the collector and student. All of these followed in the main the English styles, though some crude designs, incorrect heraldry, and clumsy engraving mark certain efTorts as the work of untrained hands who had no good models to work from. The book-plate of George Washington, though engraved in England, is the most higlily valued American book-plate of the early period. The few plates known to be the work of Paul Revere rank next, and high prices have been paid for them. The present revival of interest in the book- plate dates from the foundation of the Ex Libris Society in IS'JO. though the headquaiters are in London, the membership is thoroughly cosmo- politan. An illustrated monthly journal is is- sued to members. France and Germany also have societies which issue publications at stated intervals. All these club journals are of the utmost value and imjiortance to those who wish to keep in toucli with the jjrogress of book-plate afl'airs. There is no organization of book-])late collectors in the United Slates. Book-plates have become of sufiicient importance to be listed by the sellers of old books and to have an occasional catalogue devoted to them entirely. Auction sales of book-plates are not uncommon, and their recognition as interesting items of literary prop- erty is widespread. The late Sir Augustus Wol- laston Franks, of London, had a collection which is said to liave numbered toward 200,000, It is now in the British iluseum. The late Dr. Joseph Jack- son Howard (who acquired the first collection of book-plates known to liave been made) possessed more than 100,000 specimens. The Count Karl Emich zu Leiniiigen-Westerburg has a very large and valuable collection. Several important col- lections exist in the United States, notably those of John P. Woodbury, Henry S. Rowe, and Fred. J. Libbie, of Boston, W. E. Baillie, of Bridgeport, Conn., and the Grolier Club, of Xew Y'ork, which gave, in 1894, the first public exhibition of book- plates in America. At the present day the black- and-white reproductions of drawings form the greater nimiber of book-plates, but the copper- jilate engraver has found in the renewed interest in these marks of book-possession an increasing demand for liis art. Edwin Davis French, of Saranac Lake, X. Y., Sidney L. Smith, of Boston, W. F. Hopson, of Xew Haven, Conn., Charles W. Slierborn and George W. Eve, of London, have international reputations as engravers on copper. Book-plate literature lias increased rapidly in the last decade. Very numerous contributions to periodicals and many monographs of permanent interest, but %hich deal with subdivisions of the subject, have been published. These would swell a complete bibliography to the dimensions of a book. The following list comprises the authori- tative works relied upon by the serious student of book-plates: Poulet-Malassis, Les Ex Libris fraiicois (Paris, 1875) : Warren, A Guide to the Study of Book-Plfites (London, 1880) ; Car- lander, Svenska Bibliotek och Ex Libris a-utcck- ningar (Stockholm, 1889) ; Warnecke, Die deutschen Biichcrzeichen (Berlin, 1890) ; Guigard, Nouvel armorial du biblio/ihile (Paris, 1890) ; Bouchot, Les Ex Libris et les marques de pos- session du lii^re (Paris, 1891); Castle, English Book-Plates (London, 1892) ; Hamilton, French Book-Plates (London, 1892) ; Jiardy, Book-Plates (London, 1893); Allen, American Book-Plates (Xew York and London, 1894); Labouchere,. Ladies' Book-Plates (London and Xew York, 1895) ; Hamilton, Dated Book-Plates (London, 1896) ; Fincham, The Artists and Engravers of British and Aniericnn Book-Plates (London, 1897) ; Count Karl Emich zu Leiningen-Wester- burg, Deutsche und iislrrrciehische liibliothck- Zeichen, Ex Libris (Stuttgart, 19011; Stone, Women Designers of Book-Plates (Xew Y'ork, 1902). BOOK'SELL'ING. The earliest history of the liroductioii and s.ilc of hooks is so ohscure that little can be added to what is told in the article I'.OOK of the (Mialdean tablets of baked clay, the Egvptian Book of the Dead, and other similar productions. We find, however, in Athens, some- thing approaching 1o an organized trade in books about the middle of the Sixth Century U.C., when Pisistratus paid scholars from the municipal treasury for prejiaring an authorized text of Homer and llesiod for the use of co])y- ists. Through the iluscuni of Alexandria and the jmblisliers of Rome, whose work was largely carried on by Greek scribes from Alexandria and Athens, this text has brought down to us the poems of Homer and llesiod. It is probable that the first regular sales of literature in Athens, and, therefore, the first in Greece, were carried on by students of philosophy. Diogenes,