Missing pages would be my impression too... possibly parts with losses re-bound? we need a translator for this stuff.

All google did was correct the spelling.

lax2235 wrote:

Bookseller descriptions are often arcane. I'm trying to learn, but I'm having difficulty with this one:

                                                                                           The Works of the Right Honourable the Earls of Rochester and Roscommon        Printed: 1709. 1648-1680 Octavo, 7.5 x 4.5 inches . This is the first Curll edition, it was first published 1707, but this edition is enlarged and rearranged. Curll is well-known for his spicy productions. [ ]2,c6, a-b8, A-D8 E6 (lacking E7-F5) F6-L8 (end of Rochester; Begining of Roscommon) A-M8,N1, (N2 blank and lacking.

 

Can anyone help me with the bolded section? Does it describe various sections of text and page or sections missing? Thanks.

 

 

First published in 1707 as 'The miscellaneous works of the Right Honourable the late Earls of Rochester and Roscommon'.
The titlepage to vol. 2 reads: 'Miscellaneous works by the Right Honourable the Earl of Roscommon. London: printed in the year MDCCIX.' Your volume should be the two volumes in one, being the Third Edition.

Yale and The Newberry Library has the following collation for this volume:

Pagination: (pt. 1) [34], 15, [1], 173, [3] p., 1 leaf of plates; (pt. 2) 190, [6] p.

Errors in pagination: pt. 1, 2nd numbered sequence, p. 116 misnumbered 161; pt. 2, p. 132 misnumbered 232.
Publisher's advertisements: pt. 2, p. [195-196].

Fine.Books will be along in the morning to sort the rest of this out.

Also, James & Devon Gray Booksellers, specializing in books printed before 1700, are the ones offering this work. You could always just give them a ring and ask if the book is complete. That would likely be the simplest and most direct route to a positive identification in regard to your question. It ain't a cheap book.

Thanks, all. Very helpful replies as I continue to learn. I'm fortunate to have this edition, and I'm attempting my own description. 

lax2235 wrote:

Thanks, all. Very helpful replies as I continue to learn. I'm fortunate to have this edition, and I'm attempting my own description.

Ahhh... if you'd said that at the outset....

The lacking leaves should be noted as mentioned above - let the prospective buyer know that the first book lacks seven leaves; that the second book wants the ultimate blank, and provide the number of leaves present against the ideal collation (e.g. "108 of 116 leaves, wanting E7, E8; F - F5 and the ultimate blank at N2...").

And then double-check that E, E2 and F6 - F8 are present and solid in the textblock, since they were contiguous with E7, E8, F, F2 and F3 which are wanting.  If those particular leaves were excised from their bifolial paira, and the cancels are wide enough to support the sewing which secures the eight bifolia which comprise Quires E and F, good enough - but give the singletons a gentle tug just to be certain.

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lyceumdreamsbook, thanks for pointing me to The Newberry Library. Very helpful, and a wonderful resource. Regarding the notation of pagination, are the brackets used only as separators, or do they have another meaning?

Fine.books,  I appreciate the edition information. Does the comment about Curll's "spicy productions" mean anything to you?

The pagination of the volume I have generally matches the Newberry notation, lacking only the plate mentioned preceeding Roscommon, and the misnumbered pages are where they're supposed to be. My Rochester section differs from Newberry in the order of the shorter sections, if I read it correctly.  

"Spicy productions" is too kind to the "ugly squinting old fellow."  

figtree3 wrote:

lax2235 wrote:

lyceumdreamsbook, thanks for pointing me to The Newberry Library. Very helpful, and a wonderful resource. Regarding the notation of pagination, are the brackets used only as separators, or do they have another meaning?

 

 

 

In the Newberry listing, I think the brackets indicate that there are that many unnumbered pages, and no brackets indicate there are that many numbered pages.  If that is what you are asking?  And I think it's pages rather than leaves, although somebody else can (and should) correct this information if I'm wrong.

 

I'm a librarian and I actually used to work at the Newberry many years ago.  This type of pagination listing is not unique to them, though.

 

Fig

Brackets, when properly employed, are intended to extrapolate from the foliation or collarion that which is not physically indicated.

In earlier books, before presses became large enough to print octavoes as single parent sheets to later be twice folded, books were printed as folios no matter the finished size.  Gatherings were marked in the lower outside corner so that the pressman would easily be able to collate the book.  As there was no need to mark the fifth, sixth, sevemth or eighth leaf in an octavo book since these leaves were conjugate to the initial four leaves, signature marks appear only on the first four of eight leaves in the average Quire and any Octavo book.  When collation is written longhand, brackets are employed to denote leaves which are absent signature marks:

a - a4 [a5 - a8]

In modern books, only the letter of each Quire appears, since the "gatherings" became a single sheet, twice folded and inserted into the sewing fram, flanked by its neighbour signatures.  It was modern signature marking which gave rise to shorthand collation:

a8; b - c6; d8 (and cetera)

and this sloppy collation has no place in proper description - especially in books which are irregularly signed and sewn, and more precisely when various states are recorded.

As an example, a fair number of (very) early books were printed in various states by a certain Press of Mainz, and their precise collation extends, in at least three cases, to the variance in signature marks (some in Roman, some in Arabic, some in Anglo, using the "j" as the fourth "i" in the signature marks).  This:

a8

Tells us less than nothing.

This:

a - a4 [a -8]

is fine is it follows the exact signature marking, but often cataloguers - and especially modern library cataloguers - have no idea of the correct fashion in which collation is written.  Signature marks should be represented exactly as they appear. This is time consuming:

a, aii, aiii, aiiij [a5 - a8]

but serves to tell us precisely what's printed in the lower corner of the first four leaves of this particular book.

Pedantic?  Not when the difference between a book signed "aiiii" "aiiij" or "a4" marks a difference in the bibliographic progression (i.e. the Issue or State) ro the curator or archivist, and as such, might mean a difference of a large sum of money to the bookseller.

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