Marks in Books, Illustrated and Explained

In 1984, Roger Stoddard curated “an exhibition devoted to those mysterious traces left in books by printers, binders, booksellers, librarians, and collectors.” The resulting catalogue, Marks in Books, Illustrated and Explained, is cherished by curators, collectors, and scholars for the insight it offers into the making and the use of books. With sumptuous illustrations and prose at once pithy and polemical, Stoddard describes the glosses, cancels, catchwords, and signature marks that shed light on both printer’s craft and author’s art.