A Description of the Early Printed Books Owned by the Grolier Club: With a Brief Account of Their Printers and the History of Typography in the Fifteenth Century

Grolier Club

Jan 1895 · Grolier club

About this ebook

"The books described in the following catalogue are not merely examples of early bookmaking: many of them have an historic value, for they contain the first notices in print of the invention of typography. It was with this end in view that Mr. David Wolfe Bruce and his father, the late George Bruce, were collecting for more than fifty years ... The Bruce library contained not only the incunabula here catalogued, but a great number of books on the literary history of typography. Its collection of specimen-books of types and of manuals of mechanical printing was certainly the largest ever gathered on this side of the Atlantic. This library, which Mr. Bruce frequently put at the service of his studious friends, has been lately divided, and generously presented to the book-makers as well as the book-lovers of New York. The specimen-books, grammars of printing, and all books treating of the mechanics of the art, were given to the Typothetæ of this city; the incunabula, and all the valuable books on bibliography and literary history, were given to the Grolier Club. In recognition of the great value of the gift, the Committee on Publications decided to publish a catalogue of the books, illustrated with facsimiles of the more important passages that contain references to the invention and art of printing"--Pages 7-8.