{"id":5789,"date":"2013-05-06T13:53:41","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T17:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/collation.folger.edu\/?p=5789"},"modified":"2015-12-10T18:46:13","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T23:46:13","slug":"pen-facsimiles-of-early-print","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahwerner.net\/blog\/2013\/05\/pen-facsimiles-of-early-print\/","title":{"rendered":"Pen facsimiles of early print"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the commenters on last week’s crocodile<\/a> guessed, the mystery image showed writing masquerading as print or, to use the more formal term, a pen facsimile (click on any of the images in the post to enlarge them):<\/p>\n

\"May<\/a>
pen facsimile of the 1611 Authorized Bible (STC 2216), sig. ^2^2A6r<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s telling that two of the three guesses focused not on the blackletter but on the roman font and the decorated initial. Both of those aspects, I think, are easier to spot as being somehow “off” in comparison to what we expect from print. But we’re not so used to looking at blackletter, and so a manuscript facsimile of that type isn’t quite as tell-tale. This is particularly true when the facsimile doesn’t have the print nearby as a point of comparison, but the difference isn’t necessarily glaring even looking across the gutter to the early printed page:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"opening\"<\/a>
opening\u00a0contrasting print (on the left) with pen facsimile (right) sig. 2A5v- ^2^2A6r<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The book in question is the Folger’s copy of the 1611 Authorized Version of the Bible<\/a> (commonly referred to as the King James Bible). The last leaves of the book are increasingly damaged—the corners are missing and repaired with blank paper—until the final original leaf is entirely gone. In its place is a pen facsimile, a hand-drawn copy of what the original leaf would have looked like. ((A side note: the last leaf of this book is\u00a0\u00b22A6, which means it’s the second occurrence of the AA series. Since the captions don’t display superscripts well, I’ve used carets to surround the initial 2. It is, I realize, not the most straightforward of signature marks. But the full sequence, which makes it slightly clearer, is A\u2076 B\u00b2 C\u2076 D\u2074; A-4Z\u2076 5A-5C\u2076; \u00b2A-\u00b2Z\u2076 \u00b22A\u2076.)) As you can see by comparing the facsimile with the original leaf, here shown in the copy at the University of Pennsylvania<\/a>, the facsimilist did a very good job:<\/p>\n

\"comparison<\/a>
comparison of the final leaf; pen facsimile (left) and original leaf (right, from Penn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But you can also see, when you’re looking for it, that the pen facsimile is just a bit wobblier than the print original—the kerning is just slightly irregular, some of the long-s’s are missing their crossbar<\/a>, and the three capital-G’s starting the instances of “God” in the third verse are all just slightly differently shaped.<\/p>\n

Once you know which is which, it’s hard not to unsee the details that reveal it as a facsimile. So try turning your powers of observation to these leaves. Which is the pen facsimile and which is the original print leaf?<\/p>\n

\"which<\/a>
which is which? (click to go to a zoomable comparison)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Made up your mind? Here’s a comparison that makes it clearer:<\/p>\n