Bookplates

Of course some people have exaggerated the importance of bookplates, and on the other hand some have affected to ignore them. Now the simple fact is that bookplates belong to bo...

The bookplate here given as a frontispiece, may be the oldest in the world. At all events, it remains to this day a fifteenth-century bookplate in a fifteenth-century book. The...

In the _ex libris_ which Jost Amman made for “Johann Fischart genannt Mentzer” the initial letters J.F.G.M. are the initial letters, too, of the owner’s motto: “Jove fovente gig...

In 1604 Egidius Sadeler of Munich engraved for Arnold von Reyger a plate which is both signed and dated. At the top of the plate is the Latin motto “Ad Deum Refugium,” and in an...

As a date is always a signal advantage, the bookplate “Petri Antonii Convers Laudonensis. L Monnier Divione. 1762” may be mentioned. It is, of course, topped by the irrepressibl...

“Nicholas Mercator was born at Cismar, Holstein, about 1620, and after completing his studies in Copenhagen he continued to reside there until 1660, when he came to England. His...

On the same page in the same collection is a plate of somewhere near the same date, and hardly armorial. The form of the plate is, for the most part, a representation of carved...

The Chippendale bookplate here given, with “Wm. Sharp” engraved at the foot of it, was one, we may suppose, engraved by William Sharp, the engraver, for himself. He was the son...

Modern bookplates are not easy to discuss satisfactorily. The following are some of the plates which were named or illustrated in _The Studio_ special winter number, 1898-9, whi...

In the pages here following are recorded many British bookplates, none of them very early; but they are referred to here, as, after all, this book must chiefly appeal to readers...

Sixty years ago the intelligent European reader would have rubbed his eyes and looked at his feet to be sure that they were not where his head ought to be, if told that American...

In a work treating of bookplates some space devoted to the subject of inscriptions in books can hardly be out of place. In the view of the real book-lover--and no others are ask...