Colophon (publishing)
Encyclopedia
In publishing, a colophon is either:
, which sometimes existed in parallel with a colophon.
In Great Britain
colophons grew generally less common in the 16th century. The statements of printing which appeared (under the terms of the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799) on the verso of the title-leaf and final page of each book printed in Britain in the 19th century are not, strictly speaking, colophons, and are better referred to as "printers' imprints" or "printer statements".
With the development of the private press movement
from around 1890, colophons became conventional in private press books, and often included a good deal of additional information on the book, including statements of limitation, data on paper, ink, type and binding, and other technical details. Some such books include a separate 'Note about the type', which will identify the names of the primary typefaces used, provide a brief description of the type's history and a brief statement about its most identifiable physical characteristics.
Some commercial publishers took up the use of colophons, and began to include similar details in their books, either at the end of the text (the traditional position) or on the verso of the title-leaf. Such colophons might identify the book's designer, the software used, the printing method, the printing company, and the kind of ink, paper and its cotton content. Book publishers Alfred A. Knopf
, the Folio Society
and O'Reilly Media
are notable for their substantial colophons.
Many colophons used in the 15th century are clearly derivative of alchemical symbol
s relating to the alloys used by printers to make lead type, primarily the symbols for antimony
and tin
.
)HTML
, CSS
, or usability
standards compliance information and links to Web site validation
tests.
colophon, from the Greek
κολοφων (meaning "summit", "top", or "finishing"). It should not be confused with Colophon, an ancient city in Asia Minor
, after which "colophony", or rosin
(ronnel) is named.
The term derives from tablet
inscriptions appended by a scribe
to the end of an ancient Near East (e.g., Early/Middle/Late Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanite) text such as a chapter, book, manuscript, or record. In the ancient Near East, scribes typically recorded information on clay tablet
s. The colophon usually contained facts relative to the text such as associated person(s) (e.g., the scribe, owner, or commissioner of the tablet), literary contents (e.g., a title, "catch" phrase, number of lines), and occasion or purpose of writing. Colophons and "catch phrases" (repeated phrases) helped the reader organize and identify various tablets, and keep related tablets together.
Positionally, colophons on ancient tablets are comparable to a signature line in our own times. Bibliographically, however, they more closely resemble the imprint page in a modern book.
Examples of colophons in ancient literature may be found in the compilation Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Colophons are also found in the Pentateuch
, where an understanding of this ancient literary convention illuminates passages that are otherwise unclear or incoherent. Examples are Numbers 3:1, where a later (and incorrect) chapter division makes this verse a heading for the following chapter instead of interpreting it properly as a colophon or summary for the preceding two chapters, and Genesis 37:2a, a colophon that concludes the histories (toledoth) of Jacob.
An extensive study of the eleven colophons found in the book of Genesis was done by Percy Wiseman. Wiseman's study of the Genesis colophons, sometimes described as the Wiseman hypothesis
, has a detailed examination of the "catch phrases" mentioned above that were used in literature of the second millennium BC and earlier in tying together the various accounts in a series of tablets.
- A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or
- A printer's mark or logotype
Production notes
In early printed books the colophon, when present, was a brief description of the printing and publication of the book, giving some or all of the following data: the date of publication, the place of publication/printing (sometimes including the address as well as the city name), the name(s) of the printer(s), and the name(s) of the publisher(s), if different. Sometimes additional information, such as the name of a proof-reader or editor, or other more-or-less relevant details, might be added. The normal position for a colophon was after the explicit, at the end of the text (and often right at the end of the book, after any index or register). After around 1500 these data were often transferred to the title pageTitle page
The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title and author, usually together with information relating to the publication of the book...
, which sometimes existed in parallel with a colophon.
In Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
colophons grew generally less common in the 16th century. The statements of printing which appeared (under the terms of the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799) on the verso of the title-leaf and final page of each book printed in Britain in the 19th century are not, strictly speaking, colophons, and are better referred to as "printers' imprints" or "printer statements".
With the development of the private press movement
Private press
Private press is a term used in the field of book collecting to describe a printing press operated as an artistic or craft-based endeavor, rather than as a purely commercial venture...
from around 1890, colophons became conventional in private press books, and often included a good deal of additional information on the book, including statements of limitation, data on paper, ink, type and binding, and other technical details. Some such books include a separate 'Note about the type', which will identify the names of the primary typefaces used, provide a brief description of the type's history and a brief statement about its most identifiable physical characteristics.
Some commercial publishers took up the use of colophons, and began to include similar details in their books, either at the end of the text (the traditional position) or on the verso of the title-leaf. Such colophons might identify the book's designer, the software used, the printing method, the printing company, and the kind of ink, paper and its cotton content. Book publishers Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
, the Folio Society
Folio Society
The Folio Society is a book club based in London that produces new editions of classic books. Their books are notable for their high quality bindings and original illustrations...
and O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media is an American media company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books and Web sites and produces conferences on computer technology topics...
are notable for their substantial colophons.
Printer's mark
A less frequent use of the term is for a printer's mark or logotype. This originated in Renaissance printing shops, where a title page would feature the printer's mark (colophon) near the bottom of the page, usually above the printer's name and city.Many colophons used in the 15th century are clearly derivative of alchemical symbol
Alchemical symbol
Alchemical symbols, originally devised as part of alchemy, were used to denote some elements and some compounds until the 18th century. Note that while notation like this was mostly standardized, style and symbol varied between alchemists, so this page lists the most common.-Three primes:According...
s relating to the alloys used by printers to make lead type, primarily the symbols for antimony
Antimony
Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...
and tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
.
Web use
Some Web pages also have colophons, which frequently contain (XXHTML
XHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....
)HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
, CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
, or usability
Usability
Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, or anything a human interacts with. A usability study may be conducted as a primary job function by a usability analyst or as a secondary job...
standards compliance information and links to Web site validation
XML Validation
XML validation is the process of checking a document written in XML to confirm that it is both "well-formed" and also "valid" in that it follows a defined structure. A "well-formed" document follows the basic syntactic rules of XML, which are the same for all XML documents...
tests.
History
The term "colophon" derives from the Late LatinLate Latin
Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD extending in Spain to the 7th. This somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin...
colophon, from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
κολοφων (meaning "summit", "top", or "finishing"). It should not be confused with Colophon, an ancient city in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, after which "colophony", or rosin
Rosin
.Rosin, also called colophony or Greek pitch , is a solid form of resin obtained from pines and some other plants, mostly conifers, produced by heating fresh liquid resin to vaporize the volatile liquid terpene components. It is semi-transparent and varies in color from yellow to black...
(ronnel) is named.
The term derives from tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
inscriptions appended by a scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
to the end of an ancient Near East (e.g., Early/Middle/Late Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanite) text such as a chapter, book, manuscript, or record. In the ancient Near East, scribes typically recorded information on clay tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
s. The colophon usually contained facts relative to the text such as associated person(s) (e.g., the scribe, owner, or commissioner of the tablet), literary contents (e.g., a title, "catch" phrase, number of lines), and occasion or purpose of writing. Colophons and "catch phrases" (repeated phrases) helped the reader organize and identify various tablets, and keep related tablets together.
Positionally, colophons on ancient tablets are comparable to a signature line in our own times. Bibliographically, however, they more closely resemble the imprint page in a modern book.
Examples of colophons in ancient literature may be found in the compilation Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Colophons are also found in the Pentateuch
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
, where an understanding of this ancient literary convention illuminates passages that are otherwise unclear or incoherent. Examples are Numbers 3:1, where a later (and incorrect) chapter division makes this verse a heading for the following chapter instead of interpreting it properly as a colophon or summary for the preceding two chapters, and Genesis 37:2a, a colophon that concludes the histories (toledoth) of Jacob.
An extensive study of the eleven colophons found in the book of Genesis was done by Percy Wiseman. Wiseman's study of the Genesis colophons, sometimes described as the Wiseman hypothesis
Wiseman hypothesis
The Wiseman hypothesis, sometimes called the tablet theory, is a theory of the authorship and composition of the Book of Genesis which suggests that Moses compiled Genesis from tablets handed down through Abraham and the other patriarchs. Originally advocated by P. J...
, has a detailed examination of the "catch phrases" mentioned above that were used in literature of the second millennium BC and earlier in tying together the various accounts in a series of tablets.
Examples
- The colophon page from Stephen WolframStephen WolframStephen Wolfram is a British scientist and the chief designer of the Mathematica software application and the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine.- Biography :...
's book A New Kind of ScienceA New Kind of ScienceA New Kind of Science is a book by Stephen Wolfram, published in 2002. It contains an empirical and systematic study of computational systems such as cellular automata...