ndard price was
3 fr. 50, had continued in force for the greater part of the century.
Even after novels were sold at reasonable rates artificial prices were
maintained for books of travel and biographies, so that the circulating
libraries were practically the only customers for the first editions.
(See PUBLISHING and BOOKSELLING). (A. W. Po.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Works especially devoted to these facsimiles are:--Berjeau's
_Early Dutch, German and English Printers' Marks_ (London, 1866); W.
Roberts's _Printers' Marks_ (London, 1893); Silvestre's _Marques
typographiques_ (French; Paris, 1853-1867); _Die Buchermarken oder
Buchdrucker und Verlegerzeichen_ (Strassburg, 1892-1898), the
successive parts containing the devices used in Alsace, Italy, Basel,
Frankfort, Mainz and Cologne; and _Marques typographiques des
imprimeurs et libraires qui ont exerce dans les Pays-Bas_ (Gand,
1894). Numerous devices are also reproduced in histories of printing
and in volumes of facsimiles of early types.

[2] An edition of a bull of Pope Pius II. in the John Rylands
library, Manchester, in types used by Fust and Schoeffer at Mainz,
bears printed on the top of the first page the words "Dis ist die bul
zu dutsch die unser allerheiligster vatter der bapst Pius herusgesant
hait widder die snoden ungleubigen turcken." This is attributed to
the year 1463, and is claimed as the first book with a printed
title-page.

BOOKBINDING.

Origins.

Bindings or covers to protect written or printed matter have always
followed the shapes of the material on which the writing or printing was
done. Very early inscriptions on rocks or wood needed no coverings, and
the earliest instances of protective covers are to be found among the
smaller Assyrian tablets of about the 8th century B.C. These tablets,
with cuneiform inscriptions recording sales of slaves, loans of money
and small matters generally, are often enclosed in an outer shell of the
same shape and impressed with a short title. Egyptian papyrus rolls were
generally kept in roll form, bound round with papyrus tape and often
sealed with seals of Nile mud; and the rolls in turn were often
preserved in rectangular hollows cut in wood. The next earliest material
to papyrus used for writing upon was tree bark. Bark books, still
commonly used by uncultured nations, often consisting of collections of
magical formulae or medical