May also be abbreviated with: 8vo, 8°, or In-8. Octavo - Multiple pages of text (eight to a side, sixteen total) printed on a full sheet of paper that is then folded three times to produce eight leaves, or sixteen pages, after cutting the seams. Leaf – A single sheet of paper or parchment that comprises one page on the front side (recto) and another on the back (verso). The band can be plain or colored, and was originally worked over leather, cord, or rolled paper. Headband – A decorative band, usually colored, which originally protected the top and bottom edges of the spine but in modern books is strictly decorative. Head – The aptly named top edge of the book. Half bound – a binding style in which the spine and a small portion of the sides or the corners of a book are bound in one material and the sides are covered in a different material. The interior side is the hinge, which can be covered in endpapers. Joint and Hinge – The joint is the exterior element where a board joins the spine and bends when opened. Folio is also used to describe the general size of a book if it’s about 15 inches.įull Bound – a binding style in which the book is bound in one material (leather, cloth, etc.). Usually, the end papers are blank, and thus they make an ideal location for an author's signature.įlyleaf – The extra blank page (leaf) after the end papers.įolio – Multiple pages of text (two to a side, four total) printed on a full sheet of paper that is then folded only once to produce two leaves, or four pages. One leaf is pasted to the board, with the other remaining free. (The dust jacket pictured above from Mark Twain's The Jumping Frog is from 1903.)Įnd Papers – Double leaves bound in at the front and rear of a book after printing. The earliest recorded dust jackets date from the early nineteenth century. Sometimes (often in the United Kingdom) called a dust wrapper, it often includes information about the book and author. The proper terminology for this type of binding is tête-bêche (from the French for head-to-toe), but dos-à-dos binding is used more loosely as an over-arching term for this type of binding.ĭust Jacket - The (mostly) paper jacket which is wrapped around most modern books to protect the cloth covers. This binding form was popular from the 17th century onward. Shelf cocked refers to a book that cannot stand perpendicular to the shelf (also called a spine lean).ĭos-à-dos – In dos-à-dos binding (from the French for "back-to-back"), two books are bound back-to-back so that they share one lower board as back cover and open in opposite directions. This often occurs because of a rapid change in moisture.Ĭocked – Spine cocked refers to book that is twisted in a way that the front and back boards don't line up when the book is laying flat. Boards were historically made of wood, but most modern binders use cardboard.īowed – A condition where the boards of a hardcover book have turned either inwards or outwards in relation to the leaves. For example, what do you know about Advanced Reading Copies? What are the terms to distinguish these unique collectible items? Read More > A Glossary of Book Binding Termsīoards – The stiff material commonly referred to as the covers. Of course, the process of printing and publishing a book has many steps, and when it comes to collecting rare books, the pre-publication material can be as valuable (if not more so) than the actual book. Condition of a book: For more information on these terms (think, bowed, chipped, ex-library, etc.) click here.Art of a book: For more information on these terms (think, blind stamping, illumination, gilt, etc.), click here.Anatomy of a book: For more information on these terms (think, boards, colophon, dust jacket, etc.), click here.After all, no one wants to be bamboozled because they failed to understand just what they were buying. Collectors know firsthand how important it is to recognize the terminology used in descriptions of books for sale. We’ve put together a running Glossary of Rare Book Terms and you can find it here.
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