Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Permissions
- Conventions
- List of abbreviations
- 1 1357–1500
- 2 1501–1509
- 3 1510–1520
- 4 1521–1528
- 5 1529–1534
- 6 1535–1541
- 7 1535–1541
- 8 1542–1546
- Endnotes to Volume I
- 9 1547–1553
- 10 1553–1557
- 11 1554–1557
- 12 1501–1557
- APPENDIXES
- A The founding of the Company, 12 July 1403
- B Edition-sheets versus ‘masterformes’
- C Importation statistics
- D Privileges, patents, and placards
- E A surfeit of Bourmans
- F John Day of Barholm
- G The sites of six printing houses
- H Maps: Fleet Street, St Paul's Churchyard, and Paternoster Row
- I Stationers’ Hall and its neighbours
- J The charter of 1557
- K Books represented in Graphs 2–3
- Endnotes to Volume 2
- Manuscripts cited
- Bibliography
- Index of STC numbers
- General index
B - Edition-sheets versus ‘masterformes’
from APPENDIXES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Permissions
- Conventions
- List of abbreviations
- 1 1357–1500
- 2 1501–1509
- 3 1510–1520
- 4 1521–1528
- 5 1529–1534
- 6 1535–1541
- 7 1535–1541
- 8 1542–1546
- Endnotes to Volume I
- 9 1547–1553
- 10 1553–1557
- 11 1554–1557
- 12 1501–1557
- APPENDIXES
- A The founding of the Company, 12 July 1403
- B Edition-sheets versus ‘masterformes’
- C Importation statistics
- D Privileges, patents, and placards
- E A surfeit of Bourmans
- F John Day of Barholm
- G The sites of six printing houses
- H Maps: Fleet Street, St Paul's Churchyard, and Paternoster Row
- I Stationers’ Hall and its neighbours
- J The charter of 1557
- K Books represented in Graphs 2–3
- Endnotes to Volume 2
- Manuscripts cited
- Bibliography
- Index of STC numbers
- General index
Summary
Edition-sheets
There are two possible ways of quantifying the productivity of a printing house, and neither is entirely satisfactory. The amount of type set by the compositors can be measured or the number of sheets printed by the pressmen can be estimated.
The principal virtue of the former method is accuracy. For a simple approximation one can merely multiply the number of printed sheets in each book by the number of leaves in a sheet. More precise numbers can be obtained by counting only printed formes and excluding any blank ones; better still one can count printed pages and omit all blanks. In his study of Valentine Simmes, W. Craig Ferguson counted and measured the lines in a typical page of each book and then calculated the total length of the typesetting in metres. Even greater precision could be obtained by actually measuring each line of each fount in displays such as title-pages, head-titles, and side-notes, and then calculating the total number of ens for each size.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Stationers' Company and the Printers of London, 1501–1557 , pp. 938 - 941Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013