early books and manuscripts

May 24, 2019 - Aaron T. Pratt

Gutenberg Misbound

Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + Events Tagged With: early books and manuscripts, Gutenberg Bible

When Johann Gutenberg and his team published their Bible in the mid-1450s, what they were selling to buyers were sets of sheets, sheets of either paper or parchment that had text printed on them. What they were not selling were books—not, at least, if we take “book,” as we usually do,… read more

January 31, 2019 - Aaron T. Pratt

Collated & perfect

Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + Events, Featured1, Research + Teaching Tagged With: Beinecke Library, collated and perfect, early books and manuscripts, Pforzheimer, Pforzheimer Symposium

The publication and series of programs Collated & Perfect tracks the changing standards that collectors, institutions, and scholars have used to describe and evaluate early printed books. Doing so reveals why the books take the often surprising forms they do today.

October 4, 2018 - Aaron T. Pratt

Printing manuscripts

Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Featured1 Tagged With: early books and manuscripts, Gutenberg Bible

In order to understand the Gutenberg Bible, it is critical to remember that it is a medieval book that was designed to satisfy the needs of medieval readers. Today, we expect pages in most books to be black and white. To navigate what we read, we rely on variations in… read more