colophon · the parts of a book

The parts have names. We keep them.

The parts of a book have names older than printing itself. A restorer ought to know the body he mends. Here is our standing glossary — added to as we go — and, we’re told, the part of the house most passers-by come to read.

anatomy of a book

From frontispiece to colophon.

Frontispiece❡ˈfrʌn.tɪ.spiːs

An illustration facing the title page — the reader’s first visual encounter with the book’s world. Often an engraving of the author, a key scene, or an allegorical figure. The frontispiece is the book’s face.

Half-title❡the quiet introduction

A page bearing only the title — no author, no publisher, no ornament. It precedes the title page like a whisper before a speech. Originally it protected the title page during binding.

Title page❡the book’s birth certificate

The formal declaration of a book’s identity: title, author, publisher, and year. Before dust jackets existed, the title page was the only advertisement a book had — and it was often typographically magnificent.

Endpaper❡the book’s lining

The decorative sheets pasted inside the covers — often marbled, sometimes plain. The endpaper is where a previous owner might paste a bookplate, or where a child writes their name.

Gutter❡ˈɡʌt.ər

The inner margin where facing pages meet the spine. Too narrow and the words vanish into the binding; too wide and the spread feels extravagant. The gutter is a book’s breath.

Deckle edge❡ˈdek.əl

The soft, feathered edge left where handmade paper met the frame of the mould. Machines trim it flat; we leave it ragged where we can, because the hand that made the sheet is worth seeing.

Foxing❡ˈfɒk.sɪŋ

The rust-brown freckling that age brings to old paper, from iron in the pulp meeting damp air over decades. Not damage so much as a book keeping time — the reason our pages are cream and never white.

Colophon❡ˈkɒl.ə.fɒn

The printer’s closing note — the maker’s mark at the end of a book rather than the front. It records who set the type, in what face, and where the work was done. Ours is a signature, not an afterthought.

the scribes before us

They left their mark. So do we.

The medieval scribes closed their manuscripts with a prayer, a sigh of relief, or a blessing. These are some of the finest — collected across languages and centuries.

Latinmedieval scribe’s prayer

Explicit iste liber, scriptor sit crimine liber, Christus scriptorem custodiat ac det honorem.
“Here ends this book; may the writer be free from sin. May Christ protect the writer and give him honor.”

Greekthe traveler’s joy

Ὥσπερ ξένοι χαίρουσιν ἰδεῖν πατρίδα, οὕτως καὶ οἱ γράφοντες ἰδεῖν βιβλίου τέλος.
“As travelers rejoice to see their homeland, so too do writers rejoice to see the end of a book.”

Sanskrita devotional offering

श्रीकृष्णार्पणमस्तु
“Let this be an offering to Lord Krishna.”

Chinesegratitude upon completion

書成矣，感謝天地
“The book is complete; thanks be to Heaven and Earth.”

Hebrewthe scribe’s thanks

A prayer of thanks to the Almighty who has enabled this discourse.
“Rock of Israel — guard the writer who has completed his task. Praise to God who has bound together these pages.”

Englishecclesiastes 12:12

“Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”

our colophon

The maker’s mark.

historical colophons · the tradition

The word is Greek — kolophōn — summit, finishing touch.

The Mainz Psalter, 1457❡the first printed colophon

“This volume of the Psalms, adorned with a magnificence of capital letters and clearly divided by rubrics, has been fashioned by a mechanical process of printing and producing characters, without use of a pen.”

The first printed book to carry a date, a colophon, and a printer’s mark. Fust & Schöffer — Gutenberg’s financier and his best workman — boasted without use of a pen, and attached the first printer’s device: the twin shields hanging from a branch. Signature and trademark, born together, at the back of the book.

Caxton’s worn pen, c. 1473–74❡the first book printed in English

“...my penne is worn, myn hande wery and not stedfast, myn eyen dimmed with overmoche lokyng on the whit paper... Therefore I have practysed and lerned at my grete charge and dispense to ordeyne this said book in prynte... and it is not wreton with penne and ynke as other bokes ben... to thende that every man may have them attones.”

William Caxton ends the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye— the first book printed in English — explaining why he learned to print: a translator so tired of copying his own bestseller by hand that he went and learned the new German art. Mass production, explained as a cure for eye strain. (Spelling per E. Gordon Duff, William Caxton.)

This collection will grow. If you have a colophon worth preserving, write to us.