Earliest Dutch Imposition Manual

"Although "imposition manuals" -- instructions on the proper layout of typeset pages for the press -- have always been useful tools of the printing trade, surviving examples are rare. The present volume has been reproduced from a unique manuscript in the collection of the Grolier Club Library. Entitled Overslag-Boek, zeer nuttig voor alle Liefhebbers der Edele Boekdruk-konste ("Imposition Manual, very useful for all Practitioners of the Noble Art of Printing"), it was compiled in the years 1794-1795 by printer Joannes Josephus Balthazar Vanderstraelen, a native of Antwerp. Vanderstraelen's manuscript illustrates, through a series of diagrams in ink and watercolor, the correct position of composed pages, arranged so that they would appear in the correct order after having been printed and folded. All the common printing formats are presented in order of size, from folio to 64mo. The elements of standard printing "furniture" -- the chase, quoins, wedges, etc. -- are delicately rendered in various shades of watercolor wash, providing remarkably clear visual instructions on the proper arrangement of formes of type on the press. These diagrams are reproduced here in their entirety, and