Re: Second edition or second printing

["Kevin. Mac Donnell" <info@MACDONNELLRAREBOOKS.COM>]

I might have missed a posting on this subject, but I was surprised to see no
mention of Gaskell, who nicely sums up this very discussion on p. 314 of his
New Intro to Bibliography. It reflects, more or less, the notions expressed
by Wilkie and Metzger, with which I agree.

As Wilkie mentions, Carter's definition sounds begrudging when it comes to
photo-offset copies produced five hundred years after the first setting of
type touched paper, and I think that particular revision to Carter's text
actually reflects the thinking of Barker and/or Todd, who both contributed
to the revised editions of Carter.

As with "first edition thus" the best advice is probably to explain
precisely and concisely what is at hand. After all, the point of descriptive
bibliography is to describe. The point of describing is to give the reader
some basis for making judgments about the authority or utility of the text
itself.

Kevin
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Brown, Editor" <scott@FINEBOOKSMAGAZINE.COM>
To: <EXLIBRIS@MAIL.ECW.NAME>
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 1:23 PM
Subject: [EXLIBRIS] Second edition or second printing


> I think this discussion points out a serious need for an expansion of the
> bibliographical definition of edition to reflect modern technology. I
think
> it was fair to say that when Bowers defined an edition based on a setting
of
> type, he was thinking of the handpress era.
>
> As such, he didn't even consider illustrations to be part of the notion of
> edition. Illustrations were printed separately and added at the binding
> stage and had nothing to do with the type. A book's binding also had
little
> relevance, since bindings were done independently of the printing. Today,
> many illustrated books are printed from integrated plates that combine
text
> and image together, and binding is often done inline with the printing and
> is hard to separate from the production of the pages.
>
> In the current issue of Fine Books & Collections, Joel Silver provides a
> brief introduction to the notion of the first edition and points out the
the
> term edition has different meanings for bibliographers, book collectors,
and
> publishers (who probably originated the term). These differences in
approach
> inevitable cause confusion.
>
> Bibliographers give the term edition its most precise meaning, but it is
> strictly limited to the text of a book, and not the surrounding parts.
Book
> collectors tend only to focus on the first printing of the first edition,
> but they care about things like the binding, dust jacket, and
illustrations
> that bibliographers often give less weight to. Different publishers use
the
> term edition to mean different things and are under no compunction to be
> consistent. But then book collectors and bibliographers borrowed the term
> from printers and publishers so we can't really complain about them using
it
> incorrectly.
>
> Joel also points out all the things that we don't consider first
editions -
> periodical appearances, proofs, etc.
>
> I adapted Joel's article to replace the Wikipedia definition of first
> edition. I would encourage those of you who are particularly interested in
> this subject to add to our start:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_edition
>
> Just hit the Edit This Page button at the top of your screen and revise
> away. As the founders of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia written by its
> readers, say, Be bold.
>
> Scott Brown
> **********************************
> P. Scott Brown, Editor
> Fine Books & Collections magazine
>
> PO Box 106
> Eureka, CA 95502
> tel. 707.443.9562
> fax. 707.443.9572
> http://www.finebooksmagazine.com
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