Printing and Binding
The Folio
As its namesake indicates, the book is a folio, “whereby a sheet is folded once across the longer side, giving two leaves (four pages)”. The Oxford Companion to the Book further states standard characteristics are vertical chain lines, the watermark mid-leaf, and an uncut minimum leaf height of 30 cm. The folio then comprises of a gathering of multiple folio leaves (“folio”).
Why a Folio?
It is significant to note this was the first folio-size volume dedicated entirely to play texts (Murphy 43). Traditionally, the folio format had been reserved for works of a serious nature. Hence, the choice of a folio format may have been an intentional move to elevate the status of Shakespeare’s work and the genre of play texts in general. Other scholars such as Charlton Hilman, have remarked the sheer size of Shakespeare’s 36 plays would not have fit or been adequately read in a quarto format (qtd in Murphy 43).
Outer and inner views of a Folio leaf from Gaskell's A New Introduction to Bibliography.
Genre Divisions
The folio is organized into three categories: Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. As Andrew Murphy has noted, this editorial choice may have intended to give the folio a classical framework. His work explains “the genres themselves, at any rate those of comedy and tragedy, must also have had the attraction of classical forms for Shakespeare’s first editors, conferring the dignity of ancient drama on the work of their fellow actor” (Stephen Orgel qtd in Murphy 42).
Pagination:
[16], 303, [1], 232, 419, [1]
bracket: unpaginated
unbracketed: paginated on the upper right hand corner
Signatures:
A—Z, then Aa—Cc, [1], then a—z, then aa—zz, then aaa—ddd.
Catch words:
The Folio contains catch-words in almost all pages (bottom right hand corner). According to Gaskell, “it became usual in the mid sixteenth century to complete each page with the first word of the following page set as a catchword at the end of the direction line” (53).
Font:
-
Text size:
Body 82. Face 80 X 2:3 (in mm)
Measurements were obtained following directions from the Oxford New Introduction to Bibliography,
“(face height x20) X (x-height) : (capital height)” (Gaskell 14).
body size: 4.1mm (x20) = 82
face height: 4mm (x20) = 80
x-height: 2mm
capital height: 3mm
-
Set solid lines
Since the gap between an ascender and descender is less than 0.5mm, this indicates the lines are “probably set solid”. That is to say, “without interlinear leads, the tin strips of typemetal, wood or card that could be slipped in between each line of type” (Gaskell 14).
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Name of Body-Size: pica
Following the table of “Names and Body-sizes of Text Types in the Hand-press Period”, I presume the font is a pica ( apparent range of sizes: 79-85mm) (Gaskell 15).
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Name of formal face type: Aldine roman
Given its date, I’m guessing it is a ‘renaissance roman form’ from Gaskell’s classification of face types (16). Between the two romans that became “the standard roman for most of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries”, that of the Venetian printer Aldus Manutius (introduced in 1495), known as the ‘Aldine roman’ has the closest visual resemblance. It cannot be Jenson’s roman (the other one) because the cross-bar of e is horizontal in the Aldus and sloped in the Jenson (21).
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Names of cursive face type: Aldine italics
As for the cursive, the closest visual resemblance is to the Aldus’ italic sampled by Gaskell (24). It was distinguished by “the curved ends of their long ascenders and descenders”, which we can see in the Folio face type (24).
In terms of the face type of the first edition, Gaskell makes note of “Jaggard’s fount of pica roman” in Shakespeare’s First Folio (53). Since the Second Folio was printed in the same shop, but under new owners (the Cotes brothers), this leads me to suggest a strong likelihood that the same pica roman face type was used for the second impression.
Sample Aldine roman font from Gaskell's A New Introduction to Bibliography (21).
Paper Manufacture
In the Hand-press period (1500-1800), Gaskell remarks “the raw material of white paper was undyed linen” (57). After the rags were pounded to a pulp, it would be transferred to a vat and then poured into a mould, fitted to a “deckle” (its wooden rim). Next the water was pressed out of it and hung out to dry, at which point it is called a “waterleaf” (Gaskell 57-9).
The paper in this Folio is also most likely imported from foreign mills, probably France. Gaskell explains “practically all the white paper used by English printers up to 1670 came from foreign mills, and much the greatest part of it from France, especially Normandy” (60)
A mould and deckle from Gaskell's A New Introduction to Bibliography (28).
Chain lines and Watermarks:
Each mould had a particular pattern, creating fantastically unique hand-made paper.
Chains ran parallel to the shorter edges of the mould at about 25mm intervals, and wires ran parallel to the longer edges of the mould, 1mm or less apart. The chains and wires created “small indentations in the underside of the sheet” (Gaskell 60).
Likewise, to create watermarks, pictures or letters were “fashioned in wire and sewn to the surface of the
mould” (Gaskell 61). Since the paper would be wet, it would cause “a variation in optical density” which then “becomes visible in transmitted or reflected light” (“watermark.”).
When held up to the light, Page [10] of the Folio, beautifully displays its chain pattern (at intervals of 22mm), much smaller wire pattern, and watermark.
Other watermarks are visible in the backside of the title page, pages [9] and [11] from the dedicatory poems, and page 419. The otherwise lack of watermarks indicates the paper used for the majority of the Folio was of “inferior quality” (Gaskell 65). Page 419’s seems to be a standard Fleur de lys watermark (Gaskell 69).
Watermark pattern from Gaskell's A New Introduction to Bibliography (69).
The Binding
The current binding is certainly not the original. According to our RBSC Librarian Chelsea Shriver, it was probably put on by John Burns, which would date it to a late 19th c. binding.
Evidence of this new binding is at the top of the M5 verso (page 142), where there is an inscription. The top of the handwriting is visibly cut-off, indicative of trimming of the textblock. Hence, it is likely that the textblock underwent trimming prior to re-binding. Since we also know the handwriting is in “seventeenth century hand”, according to the the Sotheby’s Catalogue, the binding must date from the 17th c. onwards (Sotheby 5).
Page 142 of the Folio. The inscription reads: “Mrs. Mary Loud, in Hatton Garden, London”.
Other features may point towards a 19th c. binding. We can see from tears in the corners and front cover that the board is made of some paper or other fiber pulp. The spine is also rounded, backed, and has a fabric headband. Finally, the cover is highly ornate and decorated. According to Jane Greenfield’s ABC of Bookbinding, these are all characteristics of 19th c. binding structure (109).
The Folio features that would point to an 18th c. binding instead are its gilded edges and covers made of calf or goatskin (Greenfield 107). Unfortunately, we cannot dissemble the book and look into its spine, otherwise machine sewing would be a sure indicator of a 19th c. binding (Greenfield 109).
Size:
33.4 cm by 23.3 cm
The last detail to consider is the fabulous marbled endsheets. According to Samuel Revell from the Victoria and Albert Museum, “the nineteenth century saw the marbling industry peak”. And more specifically, the “nonpareil pattern became ubiquitous in the Victorian era” (Revell). Looking at various samples of nonpareil marbling, it is exactly the type used in the Folio. Taking all these features into consideration, while I cannot date the binding with certainty, I would argue for the late 19th c.
“Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, nonpareil pattern” from the University of Washington Libraries, Book Arts Collection. DEP0114.
Finally, Ethel Wilson, in her letter dating c.1960, also commented on the binding, writing “the bindings are relatively new, beautiful and strong” (Wilson 5). Since then, the back cover has sadly completely detached, so that must have happened sometime after 1960. Chelsea Shriver suggested it may have been caused because its previous box, referred to in Sotheby’s catalogue as a “red Morocco slip case”, was too tight (Sotheby 5).
Finally, Ethel Wilson, in her letter dating c.1960, also commented on the binding, writing “the bindings are relatively new, beautiful and strong” (Wilson 5). Since then, the back cover has sadly completely detached, so that must have happened sometime after 1960. Chelsea Shriver suggested it may have been caused because its previous box, referred to in Sotheby’s catalogue as a “red Morocco slip case”, was too tight (Sotheby 5) .
