A look inside an early modern book shop: a thread for #histodons and #bookhistory experts.
Expect surprises, nowadays book buyers. I am using printed images of the chapter dedicated to bookseller's shops of the "Orbis Sensualium Pictus" (Visible World in Pictures) from John Amos #Comenius. The book was firstly published in 1658 and became a widely reprinted and variated children's textbook for centuries.
Enjoy, #EarlyModons, and @bookstodon and @histodons.
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The book was a European bestseller, and its first version was already there in 1653 - published as "Lucidarium". However, no complete print or even manuscript has been found yet.
The first "real" version was published in Latin and German in 1658 in Nürnberg (by Michael Endter). From here on, the transnational success story starts. The book features chapters illustrated by copperplate prints, and most versions are bilingual. And two pages were always dedicated to the "bookseller's shop".
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This is the first used printed image of an early modern bookseller's shop from the "Orbis" book of 1658 (page 192 and 193).
As the book was published in Latin and German, you see "Bibliopolium" and "Buchladen" as the headers.
As it was the tradition in these days, remarks and "footnotes" comments were made with numbers in the image. You see the relating text parts on the other page.
Let's have a closer look, what we see and don't see. #bookhistory
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Let's start with the obvious: this book shop is well organized, and does not invite to browse the offered titles. Why?
Because #backwardsbooks! You might remember that books in #libraries and #bookshops were shelved fore-edge outwards way into the eighteenth century. It was a bookish world in which authors and titles were often written in ink onto the fore-edges.
So as a buyer in 1658 you might choose to look at boxes or fore-edges, or talk to the bookseller at the desk.
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What might have been in all these boxes, dear booksellers of the past? Paper sheets (likely), inkpots (maybe), and what else? More unbound books waiting for a bookbinder? #bookhistory
About half of the room's cupboards are full with "boxes". While some of these things might have been boxes to store stuff, these cupboards are intended to show stacks of unfolded printed sheets (of a certain publication), organized with labels.
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The highlighted first printed image of a bookseller's shop had an impact on the following editions of the book, and the way a bookshop was presented in print to children. The first English edition was published in 1659, and the first quadrilingual edition (in Latin, German, Italian and French) was published in 1666, and so on.
As a first example, you see the printed image of the book shop in slight variation from a 1667 edition. The bookseller has grown a bit, but the rest stays the same
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A trilingual edition (Danish/German/Latin) from 1672 used a completely new image for the page about bookseller's shops: https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/65575/291
Now we see a crowded room (only men), tables with bound books, and various single-sheet items (#broadsides), a wall full of #backwardsbooks (waiting for a bookbinder), another wall full of boxes or stacked unfolded sheets, and in the middle: various prints, a map, and two globes. #maphistory
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While the trilingual edition from 1672 used this new image, most other editions were happy with the old image published in the first edition of 1658.
This is the more or less exact original image published in the London 1672 edition of the "Orbis Sensualium Pictus". Remember the small bookseller of 1658? Here he is again. And lots of paper, #paperhistory.
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Here is an example of 1675 (printed in Kronstadt, nowadays #Brasov in Romania): the image stays the same but is mirror-inverted. So children in #Transylvania in these days still saw the small bookseller, a room full of boxes and papers, and a wall full of #backwardsbooks in their bilingual edition. #bookhistory
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While copying the original image from edition to edition (i.e. practically preparing a new copperplate for the own print run), the page with the bookseller's shop got unwanted slight differences. This is due to the engraver's attention. In this version of 1682 printed in #Riga the wall with the original #backwardsbooks became a wall of unlimited papers stored next to each other. The engraver was clearly not interested in the details of book units. #bookhistory
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Also in 1685, some publisher or engraver decided to play a bit with the original image of a bookseller's shop. In this edition (https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN815802552?tify=%7B%22pages%22%3A%5B202%5D%2C%22pan%22%3A%7B%22x%22%3A0.036%2C%22y%22%3A0.614%7D%2C%22view%22%3A%22thumbnails%22%2C%22zoom%22%3A0.402%7D ) the bookseller is bigger but clearly bored. He is waiting behind his desk for customers, in the back are unbound and bound books (for the first time). #bookhistory: #BoredBooksellers are part of the trade too!
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Another detail worth looking on is the size of the bookseller. As the original image of 1658 shows him as a very small person, he often stays very small in the media echoes of the later published editions. In this bilingual (English/Latin) version of 1689, the bookseller is smaller as a copy of one of these big bound book behind him. He barely manages to work at the desk. His head is as big as the inkpot on the desk. I am yet uncertain about the meaning of these small booksellers.
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The image begins to change more significantly after 1700. Like in this 1720 edition (in German and Latin) from #Nürnberg, the entire scene is interpreted more like a scholar's library work place: A large desk with a writing setting, a (normal sized, by the way) human working at the desk, and in the back are cupboards full of unbound book units, and stacked paper sheets of publications.
Bonus details: a window signals that these shops had fresh air. Also: a dog!
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While the dog disappears again in later editions of the eighteenth century (like in this 1777 bilingual edition from London), it is worth mentioning that the shown selling space of an early modern European book shop gets smaller and smaller. As in this 1777 edition, we are only shown a bookseller's desk and his 3 rather smaller cupboards full of printed stuff. Looks more like a library to me, to be honest.
Thank you for your attention, #histodons and #bookstodon . This thread ends here
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Daniel Bellingradt 
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