Reprint

“ WHITEHALL REVIEW.— "Never before has such a cheap and excellent edition of Thackeray been seen."
ACADEMY.— "A better one-volume edition at three shillings and sixpence could not be desired."
GRAPHIC.— "In its plain but pretty blue binding is both serviceable and attractive."
DAILY GRAPHIC.— "An excellent, cheap reprint."
PALL MALL GAZETTE.— "The size of the books is handy, paper and printing are good, and the binding, which is of blue cloth, is simple but tasteful. Altogether the publishers are to be congratulated upon a reprint which ought to be popular." ”

“ Pickering, during which time the study of our old literature and history has undergone considerable development, and it is believed that a reprint at a more moderate price would be acceptable to the public. Holding still the same opinion which he has always held with regard to the superior character of the manuscript from which this text was taken, the editor has done no more than carefully reprint it, but, in order to make it as useful as he could, he has revised and made additions to both the Notes and the Glossary. ”

“ If the author is "big enough," and the edition is early enough, buy. The probability is you may not realise the full importance of what you have got until you have had time to consult some book of reference; it may indeed turn out that a wretched and dirty reprint has done duty for the original, or it may so be that the book is worthless on its merits. This is one of the risks of book collecting, and, it may be added, one of its charms. ”

“ Throughout the entire period of manuscript books it was everywhere held that any man who had possession of a book, even temporarily, had a right to copy it. That the owner of the book had any right to control its duplication, even though he had been at great expense to make a copy, was not considered worth discussion. If a man could copy a manuscript which had cost a hundred crowns to make, might he not reprint a book which cost less than one tenth of that amount? ”

“ It is obvious that where the printer by his work placed himself in very considerable danger, he would not be anxious to advertise himself and would therefore [Pg 228] let his books go out without any imprint or with a fictitious one. Then comes in the study of type. It affords a far more conclusive argument than any theories drawn from where the author was living or where he would probably like to have his book printed. Then again there is the common danger of taking for an early or original edition what is merely a reprint with the original colophon unaltered. ”

“ If you are working from a pre-1923 publication, then yes.
If you are working from a modern reprint, you must be careful not to take any of the text that might have been added by the modern publisher. If you have any doubt about whether the index or glossary was part of the original printing, you should leave it out. Often with reprints, under your Clearance Line [V.37] , you may see an instruction not to use indexes. In such cases, or if there is any doubt at all, don't.
V.102. How do I handle a break from one scene to another, where the
book uses blank lines, or a row of asterisks? ”

“ Some of the readers are still yowling for reprints. Well, it is true that some reprints would be very acceptable. However, as most of the really good old-time tales of Science Fiction can be procured in any good sized library, why bother to print them and thus decrease the space allotted to our new authors, some of whom are even better than Wells, Verne, etc., much as I like the old masters. ”

“ CONSTABLE’S REPRINT
OF
The Waverley Novels
THE FAVOURITE EDITION OF
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
With all the original Plates and Vignettes (Re-engraved) . In 48 Vols.
Foolscap 8vo. Cloth, paper label title, 1s. 6d. net per Volume, or £3 12s.
the Set. Also cloth gilt, gilt top, 2s. net per Volume, or
£4 16s. the Set; and half leather gilt, 2s. 6d.
net per Volume, or £6 the Set.
“A delightful reprint. The price is lower than that of many inferior editions.”—Athenæum. ”

“ It is not necessary to remind you that publishers may to-day furnish a duplicate set of plates to any concern on earth desiring to reproduce one of their books, and that the book may be reprinted by the purchaser without the bother and expense of resetting the type; but the printer of the early days was not so fortunate, for if a concern in New York wished to reprint and sell a book originally printed in Boston, he was obliged to reset it, taking as copy the Boston production. ”

“ N.B.—The Authors and Publisher reserve the right of reprinting any book in this list if a new edition is called for, except in cases where a stipulation has been made to the contrary, and of printing a separate edition of any of the books for America irrespective of the numbers to which the English editions are limited. ”

“ But why should a printer use an old, quaint-looking type for printing and reprinting, with differences, one sheet for a book which he had printed entirely with a new and better type employed for many other works? We rather assume that the leaves are the remains of a complete (the second Dutch?) edition in Speculum type 2 and were used on this occasion as substitutes for the two corresponding leaves of the third edition, which had become defective or momentarily unavailable. ”

“ And that if any other Bookseller, Printer, or other Person whatsoever, from and after the Tenth Day of April, One thousand seven hundred and ten, within the times Granted and Limited by this Act, as aforesaid, shall Print, Reprint, or Import, or cause to be Printed, Reprinted, or Imported any such Book or Books, without the Consent of the Proprietor or Proprietors thereof first had and obtained in Writing, Signed in the Presence of Two or more Credible Witnesses ”

“ Reprints.—Stamps printed from dies after they have become obsolete. Many countries sell their obsolete dies, with the result that more or less inaccurate reprints are made from them. Reprints, for philatelic purposes, should be classed with forgeries. ”

“ The cheap reprints that are published in France are not always neat, according to British tastes, and the publishers believe that their attempts to supply reprints at once cheap and pretty will be appreciated. ”

“ The cheap reprints of popular novels which cost less than one-half as much as the original edition, although attractive in appearance, are very poorly bound and if bought in original covers must be rebound within a short time after they are first placed on the shelves. Some librarians find that it pays to send orders for books which can be obtained in cheap reprints directly to their binders, who buy the books and rebind them in the regular half-leather binding which the library uses for its rebound fiction and juvenile. ”

“ I noticed that many of the readers wrote in, requesting reprints. I am one of those who would like to see you publish some reprints, especially stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt and Ray Cummings. These [Pg 425] authors have written many masterpieces of Science Fiction. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for a person to get these stories. They could be made available easily if Astounding Stories would reprint them.
Most of the readers who object to reprints do so because they would hate to see a story by H. G. Wells or Jules Verne. ”

“ This tiny tract usually printed in pocket size (2" x 3") sometimes with a passage from the author's journal included, was reprinted more than twenty times. I happened upon it in the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College twenty years ago. They then had four copies. Today they have more than a dozen. ”

“ Such reprints were made in many cases by zealous disciples, who multiplied and distributed copies for “missionary” work, but outside of the believers, there were naturally many others, printers and book-pedlars, who were very ready to take advantage of a time of religious fervour or of controversial interest, and to make money by supplying the literature produced by the Reformers or by their antagonists. The objections that came from the authors were mainly on the ground of inaccuracy in the printing of these unsupervised editions. ”

“ Everything not worth the trouble of reprinting—that is to say everything, with the exception of a few fortunate fragments—will have disappeared, and the more rapidly that the material substance of books has become more precarious. Even the discovery of a durable paper would not give absolute assurance of survival, because of the temptation to employ this excessively strong paper for a thousand other purposes. Thus the value of the parchment has often led to the sacrifice of a manuscript, just as gold articles go necessarily to the smelting-pot once the style has changed. ”

“ Every lover of books will remember that during the continuance of the arrangement, a Canadian Publishing Trade hardly existed, and that the reading public who bought books were compelled in a great measure to satisfy themselves with American reprints, of so little value that specimens of them are now regarded almost as curiosities. ”

“ Nothing in the history of printing is so remarkable as the beauty of almost its first efforts. Other notes are -
4. The absence of figures at the top of the pages, and of signatures at the foot. The thickness and solidity of the paper, the absence of the printer's name, of the date, and of the name of the town where the press stood, and the abundance of crabbed abbreviations, are all marks, more or less trustworthy, of the antiquity of books. It must not be supposed that all books published, let us say before 1500, are rare, or deserve the notice of the collector. ”

“ That manuscript had a curious history and certainly deserves a place in a Museum. I heard lately that Gabriel Wells, [Pg 75] the American collector, has got hold of it. J. C. had made alterations in black ink, the magazine editor had gashed it horribly in red; and when the book publisher came to restore the mangled corpus he could do so, intelligibly for the printer, only by an extravagant use of green ink. You see, there was no duplicate copy of the original. Always make duplicates. If you don’t, and if you are a writer of J. C.’s size, your manuscripts may some day be priceless. ”

“ In 1774, free culture was born. In a case called Donaldson v. Beckett in the House of Lords in England, free culture was made because copyright was stopped. In 1710, the statute of Anne said that copyright should be for a limited term of just 14 years. But in the 1740s, when Scottish publishers started reprinting classics (you gotta love the Scots) , the London publishers said "Stop!". They said, "Copyright is forever!". Sonny Bono said "Copyright should be forever minus a day", but the London publishers said "Copyright is forever".
These publishers, people whom Milton referred to as "Old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of book selling, men who do not labor in an honest profession ”

“ Between the public, and the printer, and the bookbinder the publisher is torn in many directions. And then there is the author, who, as I say, does not like his text tampered with. Firms differ greatly about this. Some publishers feel perfectly justified in going ahead and remodeling a writer's work to suit themselves; others regard an author's manuscript as a sacred possession and never change so much as a punctuation mark on it without asking permission. They may suggest changes but they will not make them. It is a point of honor with them not to do so. ”

“ Only in the very early days of cloth binding were spines unimprinted. Of course labelled books, whether in boards or half-cloth, never show publishers' imprint at the tail of their spines.
Always examine end-papers. The quality of Victorian end-papers cannot be obtained to-day, and it is rare that the substitution in one book of an old end-paper from another is so neatly done as to defy detection.
Library labels and their horrid traces have no place in a fine copy. ”

“ Nor am I possessed of information that “he did not preserve his manuscript.” How can we know that? He may have kept his first draft, he may have made a fair copy for himself, as well as for the players, or may have had one made. He may have worked on a copy possessed by the players; and the publisher of the quartos of 1605, 1612, 1622, may not have been allowed to use, or may not have asked for the latest manuscript revised copy. The Richard III of the Folio contains, with much new matter, the printer’s errors of the quarto of 1622. ”

“ Nothing is so slatternly as the aspect of a book merely stitched, in the French fashion, when the threads begin to stretch, and the paper covers to curl and be torn. Worse consequences follow, whole sheets are lost, the volume becomes worthless, and the owner must often be at the expense of purchasing another copy, p. 64if he can, for the edition may now be out of print. Thus binding of some sort not only adds a grace to the library, presenting to the eye the cheerful gilded rows of our volumes, but is a positive economy. ”

“ Meantime, I negotiated with several publishers for the printing of the manuscript. When I found a publisher, my next difficulty arose. How was I to safeguard it until it was in book form? I explained this to the head of the publishing concern, who provided two watchmen who never for a single instant let the manuscript out of their sight during the day, and at night it was locked into a safe in the presence of two people. Notwithstanding these precautions, things happened. I have never spent such a harrowing, nerve-racking time in my life as I spent last July and August, 1924. ”