Includes bibliographical references and index.

Elements of Material Books. Terminology ; The matter of size ; Materials: ink, paper ; Mechanics of the press: variation ; Page format and layout ; Typography ; Illustrations: techniques and applications.

History of Books and Histories of Book-Copies. Bindings ; Marks in books: provenance ; Books in books and books from books ; Ideal copy and the goals of enumerative and descriptive bibliography ; The Ersatz Book I : facsimiles and forgeries ; The Ersatz Book II : electronic books and databases.

This work is an introduction to the study of books produced during the period of the hand press, dating from around 1450 through 1800. Using his own bibliographic interests as a guide, the author selects illustrative examples primarily from fifteenth-century books, books of particular interest to students of English literature, and books central to the development of Anglo-American bibliography. It covers the basic procedures of printing and the parts of the physical book, size, paper, type, illustration; as well as the history of book-copies from cataloging conventions and provenance to electronic media and their implications for the study of books. The author begins with the central distinction between a "book-copy", the particular, individual, physical book, and a "book", the abstract category that organizes these copies into editions, whereby each copy is interchangeable with any other. Among other issues, he addresses such basic questions as: How do students, bibliographers, and collectors discuss these things? And when is it legitimate to generalize on the basis of particular examples? He considers each issue in terms of a practical example or question a reader might confront: How do you identify books on the basis of typography? What is the status of paper evidence? How are the various elements on the page defined? What are the implications of the images available in an online database? And, significantly, how does a scholar's personal experience with books challenge or conform to the standard language of book history and bibliography?