#bookhistory
There are three types of library users: the absent-minded dreamer (1), the busy and silent reader (2), and the one looking at the other two types (3). Which one are you?
It's 5th July and people are once again saying Newton's Principia was published on 5th July 1687, as I pointed out 11 years ago this is not strictly true #histsci #bookhistory
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/published-on/
How to Spend Less Time on your Phone: Memento mori (Latin for 'remember (that you have) to die').
This meme is brought to you from #earlymodern #bookhistory and the #SmilingDeath himself.
A peepbox that opens and shows a "Pantoffel-Courier" (literally a messenger in slippers) holding a sealed letter in his hand. This playful printed artefact is from late eighteenth-century Germany, and an example of the #earlymodern popurality of peepboxes - and letters - across Europe.
For friends of #bookhistory: this peepbox consists of two prints, a woodcut and an etching.
A fun #bookhistory takeaway from today's visit to #Salem: Nathaniel #Hawthorne 's House of Seven Gables was once so popular that it featured in an issue of #WonderWoman #comics. #Museum curators help WW get the jump on Nazis by showing her a secret staircase in 7 Gables.
Fascinating:
What survives of early Hungarian print?
Out of ~6000 known works before 1700, how many have vanished? This post explores the metadata—and the limits—of our bibliographical knowledge.
@kiru
#PrintHistory #HungarianHistory #BookHistory #Bibliography #DigitalHumanities
https://translationpatterns.substack.com/p/early-hungarian-print-what-survives
This post asks: can we estimate the extent of what has disappeared? What does the “dark matter” of book history look like?
#BookHistory #DigitalHumanities #PrintCulture #HungarianHistory #LostBooks
https://translationpatterns.substack.com/p/early-hungarian-books-the-dark-matter
Paru avec un peu de retard, mais ça y est 
https://dx.doi.org/10.5840/agstm202464226
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04944680v1
Où un texte antique est (encore) sauvé de la disparition par les petites manies d'un intello carolingien (Florus)
La lettre aux moines d'un évêque Valérien (qu'on n'est pas sûr d'identifier par ailleurs) n'avait jamais été rééditée depuis 1612… et elle avait un petit trou. C'est réparé 
#bookstodon #bookhistory #histodons #ecdotics #FlorusDeLyon #ChurchHistory #medieval @histodons @bookhistodons
Welcome to June.
In this month, in 1749, settlers heading to Halifax, Nova Scotia with Cornwallis incl. Herbert Jefferie, printer, & Thomas Blackwell, bookbinder. Whether they carried type & other equipment is unclear. The 2 may have continued on to Boston, yet it’s possible Jefferie briefly worked in Halifax. If so, he could be Canada’s first printer—an honour usually bestowed upon Bartholomew Green Jr.
#books #BookHistory #typography #CdnHist 
@bookhistodons @histodons
Have a closer look: you see a scanned hand where an old book should be, and also you see the work of a finger image removal technology autocorrecting the scanning thumbs.
Yes, the thumb is pixelized, and the rest of the hand can be seen in full glory. Halleluja! #bookhistory #digitalhistory #histodons
Il vous reste quelques jours pour nous soumettre vos propositions sur les usages politiques des écrits médiévaux (16e-18e s.).
Des généalogistes inspirés par les romans de chevalerie ?
Des collectionneurs de manuscrits qui écrivent leur vie dans les marges ?
Des éditeurs qui truffent leurs notes d'éloges du pouvoir ?
Des conteuses qui prétendent s'inspirer d'un manuscrit perdu ?
Des falsificateurs ? Des généalogistes ?
Que faisaient les hommes et les femmes de la première modernité avec les écrits qui leur venaient du passé médiéval ? On veut tout savoir !
Has anyone laid hands on the US far-right's bid to bring back fine press books for gentlemen-subscribers? (Highlights: the promise of a “sublimely produced object with centerpiece quality”; the mixed metaphor that vouches “what binds this work is its quality, the bright heat of life and human blood that emanates from these pages”; the reassurance that that “this new program is retroactive and eternal.”) https://passage.press/products/passage-prize-volume-ii-rewilding-patrician-edition. [UPDATE: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/03/far-right-book-publishing-passage-press?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other] #BookHistory #FoundInanity
She’s here 
. Introducing my new Vandercook 0 tabletop proof press, manufactured sometime between 1937 and 1960. Thanks so much to Marc Tremblay with AML Crating, Ottawa, who palleted the press and contracted its shipping. And thanks to my friend David Lau for the awesome sticker. #letterpress #mediahistory #bookhistory Update: manufacture date 1950. Happy 75th birthday, Vandercook 0 #07377!
ESTC back, in beta form, at the Consortium of European Lirbaries.
Can't find any other information on this rebuild, on plans for it; and I can't see any licensing / copyright info.
@ianhunt Thanks! Today's lecture: "Lecture 3: Proxy print: How rich and poor readers pictured one other." https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/lyell-lectures-2025 #BookHistory
#BookHistory friends: please zoom into my Lyell lectures on "Victorian Books and Their Servants"! Today's lecture (2/5): "The WeWork on New Grub Street." https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/lyell-lectures-2025
Le manuscrit de Locmaria présenté à #Quimper les 16 et 17 mai prochains !
Just in case if you missed this printing event in #Mainz: they publically printed a giant page of the Gutenberg bible in the format 5 x 7,20 meter. The giant page of Gutenberg fame can now be seen for a while in the Mainz Cathedral.
Meet an absolute unit of an #earlymodern bible. On this painting from Wybrand Hendriks, the thick volume of the bible is the main message. The woman may be sewing, and there is a dog present about to play with a ball, but the big book being bigger than the entire dog signals: well-doing deep faith.