I'm not so sure that the word was as "affected" at the time as Ed suggests. If you look at the OED, it was used in the 19th century by Jane Austen, Stevenson, De Quincey, Thackeray and others. Of course it is archaic now.
Bruce Whiteman
-----Original Message-----
From: Exlibris [mailto:EXLIBRIS@MAIL.ECW.NAME] On Behalf Of Edward Levin
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 10:58 AM
To: EXLIBRIS@MAIL.ECW.NAME
Subject: Re: Withinside
I'm with Cynthy here.
The Morgan reference doesn't in any way rule out the idea that this was a printed label, to be cut out and pasted to the spine. The Morgan cataloguing doesn't make clear whose price reference this was. Given the issue date of the book, it seems unlikely (but not impossible) that the publisher issued the book in leather-bound form. More probable is that a bookseller had some copies of the book bound to their specifications, and that the 'six pence'
price is that of the bookseller.
If the publisher did not issue all of the copies in leather-bound form (and I believe it's unlikely this he did), then most, if not all, of the copies would have been issued in wrappers, with the idea that many, if not most, purchasers would have the book bound in leather (as was the case with the Morgan copy), but that some would not. Enough 18C 'wrappers' copies survive to suggest that some number of purchasers were completely content to leave their copies in wrappers. In those cases where the 'wrappers' copies survive, their labeling tends to be in the form of pasted-on printed spine labels. In some instances, books were issued with printed labels either cut and loosely laid in, or as a printed leaf to be excised, trimmed, and pasted on. It's most likely that such a printed paper spine label is what the "N.B." refers to.
On the other hand, I'm not speculate as to why on earth the publisher of the book in question chose the use an affected term like "withinside."
Edward Levin
BTW: In any case, it certainly would not have been a "lettering piece,"
which term tends to be reserved for a gilt-lettered leather label, often in a contrasting color to that of the leather binding.
>> Further, the Pierpont Morgan listing states as present in their copy,
>> in addition to the note under discussion: "[Price six pence, bound,
>> gilt, and lettered.]" This seems to rule out a lettering piece for
>> the purchaser to paste on.
>
> Hm - actually, I think it supports it - precisely because James's copy
> seems *not* to make reference to a gilt binding; in his version, the
> binding (if any) is presumably Other, and a supplied label might well
> be useful to a buyer deciding how/whether to bind or embellish the
> item himself.
>
> And, we see from the series "bound, gilt, and lettered," that "lettering"
> is probably related to binding and
> gilding but is not the same as either - "labelled" works there quite
> neatly!
>
> Cynthy
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