The committee on Publications of the Grolier Club
certifies that this copy of "Bibliographical Notes on
One Hundred Books Famous in English Literature"
is one of three hundred and five copies printed on
French hand-made paper, and three on vellum, during
the year nineteen hundred and three.
Transcriber's Note:
This is a collection bibliographical notes on old books. In the older booksthere are many instances of the long 's', printed as ſ, and used mostlyin the middle of words.
A final 's' was printed as 's', as it is now. A final double-'s' wasusually printed as 'ſs'. An exception is on Page 41: 'Odyſſ'.
"Finis duodecim libri Hom. Odyſſ. Opus nouem dierum,"
Occasionally, 'ſſ' in the middle of a word, was printed as 'ſs'.The letter 'w' was often printed as 'vv', and 'W' as 'VV'. 'J/j' wasoften printed as 'I/i', and 'I/i' as 'J/j'. Thus 'The Rich Jew of Malta'would be 'The Rich Ievv of Malta'; also: 'Paradiſe loſt' (Paradise lost),'The Pilgrims Progreſs' (The Pilgrims Progress), 'Odyſses' (Odysses), etc.
'v' was often printed as 'u', and 'u' as 'v' thus, "God ſaue the Queene"for "God save the Queen".
Also: "vntill this preſent tyme" for "until this present time".
In the earlier books, people wrote what they heard. All spelling variants,if they make sense, and are not obvious printing errors, have been retained.
Spelling rules did not exist until the later part of the 19th century.Some words and names (e.g. Church-yard/Churchyard) are hyphenated on somepages, unhyphenated on others. All have been retained.
Punctuation is not necessarily consistent, is not always present, and sometimes occurs where we would not expect it(e.g. 'the price of .ii. Shyllynges the piece'; '.xiii Articles'; 'and before the yere ,M,iiiiC, and .ix', etc.).A colon (:) was sometimes used instead of a full stop. Apostrophes were sometimes conspicuous by their absence(e.g. 'Le Morte Darthur' for 'Le Morte D'Arthur'), and opened brackets were not always closed.There are some instances of quotations enclosed in double quotes nested inside quotations similarly enclosed in double quotes,leading to the occasional paragraph ending in ."" This would appear to have been the printing style of the time, and has been retained.
The Author has included a list of corrections on Page 221, at the end of the book and before the Index.
These corrections have been implemented, as listed.
The rest of the Transcriber's Note is at the end of the book.
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