Rare Books: Space of the Page

Illustrated Thumb Bible

25 single leaves, written and decorated in France, ca. 1270.

Pictured here: MS 001, fol. o, recto.

Printed book of hours

10 single leaves from a 15th-century Book of Hours written in France. Decoration: On fol. d, verso, one full-page miniature of the Betrayal and Arrest of Christ (above) and Christ in Gethsemane (below); on fol. f, verso, one half-page miniature of the Stoning of St. Stephen; twelve 10-line miniatures.

Pictured here: MS 004, fol. d, verso.

On the recto is the end of the prayer, "Obsecro te;" on the verso is the beginining of the prayer, "O intemerata."

Pictured here: MS 005, verso.

Written in France, ca. 1475; Psalms 6:5-7:9, in Latin. Formerly owned by Otto F. Ege (1888-1951).

Pictured here: MS 062, recto.

Full page miniature depicting St. John the Baptist, by a follower of Willem Vrelant.

Pictured here: MS 063, verso.

Written in France in the 13th century, in double columns, with text of Psalms surrounded by gloss; fragment of binding waste, preserves only about 16 glossing lines of text.

Pictured here: MS 053, fol. a, verso

The sixth book of the Decretals was written under the direction of Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) and for centuries was one of the chief texts of canon law. This is a detached leaf from a manuscript made at Bologna, the chief center of canon law during the medieval period.

Pictured here: MS 067, recto.

Manuscript waste used for paste-downs to bind another book; leaves are badly damaged and cut down to about half the height of original size.

Pictured here: MS 059, fol. a, recto.

Written and illuminated in Bologna, ca. 1280-1290, in two columns of 50 lines, with surrounding Glossa ordinaria; ruled in lead with single inner and outer bounding lines for text and gloss. Text keyed to gloss by letters of the alphabet.

Pictured here: MS 007, verso.

All after leaf S2 wanting. Several other leaves are missing throughout the text and have been replaced by blank leaves with the content written in by hand.

"The collected editions of Spenser's works commonly designated as the 1611 and 1617 folios ... were made up by issuing as a single volume a number of separate sections which had been printed independently at periods often several years apart. A general title page was prefixed to these issues of the collected works, bearing the date 1611 or 1617, but these dates are in many instances at variance with the dates of the component parts"-- F.R. Johnson.

Facsimile (pages 1-30) in Latin, with English translation following. Karl Sudhoff's commentary (from the German edition of Fasciculus medicinae published in 1923) is presented here in Charles Singer's English translation.

"Easter Wings" is an example of a shaped poem.

This is a circulating book - you can check it out!
The typeface and spatial arrangement of the words on a page plays just as much of a role in the meaning of each poem as the words themselves – what Apollinaire called a calligram, but is also known as concrete or visual poetry.

An eight-language dictionary

Contains blank pages with handwritten annotations throughout

Twelve blank leaves are bound in preceding the printed text, another 12 blank leaves are interleaved with the printed text, and 14 blank leaves follow the end of the printed text.

A Benedictine monk, John Leander Davis studied at the English Benedictine abbey of Lambspring in Hanover, Germany.

Of Interest: Volume 3: A new method of a common-place-book.

Nine sets of small lift-the-flap-style pages that can be combined into hundreds (1458) different stories.

The Tunnel Calamity is a freestanding tunnel book is made up of 8 die-cut panels with concertina walls and a lens for enhanced viewing. Comes in a sturdy box, measuring 7? x 6? x ? in.

This unique artist book was bound in a hand-painted resin sculpture of a dumpster. It is filled with letterpress printed die-cut garbage along with a shredded Bill of Rights. The lids are removable and along with the garbage you also get a sculpted flag remnant and dog poo to make the shitshow that was 2020 complete.