Printed on Vellum
A List of Printed Service Books, according to the ancient uses of the Anglican Church.
London: Joseph Masters, 1850.
Price: $3,500.00
About the item
PRINTED ON VELLUM, apparently the only copy thus. 16 leaves. 4to (21.7 x 13.4 cm). Printed on Vellum. Contemporary gilt-panelled vellum binding. Beautiful copy, with blind stamp of previous owner A.J.V. Radford, and bookseller's tickets of Herbert Reichner, Lathrop C. Harper Inc., and H.P. Kraus. Besterman (Fourth edition) 3579; Halkett & Laing III 374.
Item #223102
Following the manuscript tradition, liturgical printing in both the Catholic and Anglican churches frequently employed vellum as well as paper. D.B. Updike writes that economic considerations were also a factor: “As early printed books were nothing more than a mechanical imitation of manuscripts … even in printed missals vellum was often used for the canon of the Mass, since the pages devoted to this were subject to wear by constant handling” (D.B. Updike, “Some Notes on Liturgical Printing,” The Dolphin, no. 2 (1935), pp. 208-16). That being the case, it isn’t surprising that this rare bibliography should have a vellum issue; yet no other vellum copy has been recorded.
