![Inkunabel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Inkunabel.ValMax.finis.detail.jpg)
In publishing, a colophon () is a brief statement containing information about the publication of a book such as an "imprint" (the place of publication, the publisher, and the date of publication).
A colophon may include the device (
logo
A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...
) of a printer or publisher. Colophons are traditionally printed at the ends of books (see History below for the origin of the word), but sometimes the same information appears elsewhere (when it may still be referred to as colophon) and many modern (post-1800) books bear this information on the
title page
The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title, subtitle, author, publisher, and edition, often artistically decorated. (A half title, by contrast, displays only the title of a w ...
or on the
verso
' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet.
Etymology
The terms are shortened from Latin ...
of the title-leaf, which is sometimes called a "biblio-page" or (when bearing copyright data) the "
copyright-page".
History
![Dictionary with colophon-AO 7661-IMG 0190-black](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Dictionary_with_colophon-AO_7661-IMG_0190-black.jpg)
The term ''colophon'' derives from the
Late Latin
Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...
''colophōn'', from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
κολοφών (meaning "summit" or "finishing touch").
The term colophon was used in 1729 as the bibliographic explication at the end of the book by the English printer
Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer Hon.RE (Hon. Fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers) (27 January 180524 May 1881) was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and pr ...
in his ''The General History of Printing, from Its first Invention in the City of Mentz to Its first Progress and Propagation thro' the most celebrated Cities in Europe.'' Thereafter, colophon has been the common designation for the final page that gives details of the physical creation of the book.
The existence of colophons can be dated back to antiquity. Zetzel, for example, describes an inscription from the 2nd century A.D., transmitted in humanistic manuscripts. He cites the colophon from Poggio's manuscript, a humanist from the 15th century:
''Statili(us) / maximus rursum em(en)daui ad tyrone(m) et laecanianu(m) et dom̅ & alios ueteres. III.''
(''‘I, Statilius Maximus, have for the second time revised the text according to Tiro, Laecanianus, Domitius and three others.’'')
A common colophon at the end of hand copied manuscripts was simply "Finished, thank God."
Colophons can be categorized into four groups. ''Assertive'' colophons provide the contextual information about the scribe and manuscript. ''Expressive'' colophons demonstrate the scribe's feelings and wishes. ''Directive'' colophons make the reader do something, and the ''declarative'' colophons do something with the reader.
Examples of ''expressive'' colophons:
* "I have made an end at last, and my weary hand can rest."
* "Now that I an end have made,
See that what I'm owed is paid."
* "May the writer continue to copy,
and drink good wine."
Example of ''directive'' colophons:
* ''O beatissime lector, lava manus tuas et sic librum adprehende, leniter folia turna, longe a littera digitos pone''.
("O most gracious reader, wash your hands and touch the book only like this: turn the pages softly and keep your fingers far away from the text".)
Example of ''declarative'' colophons:
* ''Si quis et hunc sancti sumit de culmine galli / Hunc Gallus paulusque simul dent pestibus amplis''
("If anybody takes this book from Gall’s estate, Gall and Paulus together shall inflict the plague upon him".)
The term is also applied to
clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets ( Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.
Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a sty ...
inscriptions appended by a
scribe
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing.
The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...
to the end of an
Ancient Near East
The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...
(''e.g.'', Early/Middle/Late
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
ian,
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
n,
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
ite) text such as a chapter, book, manuscript, or record. 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
A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...
, "catch phrases" (repeated phrases), or number of lines), and occasion or purpose of writing. Colophons and catch 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 modern 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 ''The Ancient Near East: Supplementary Texts and Pictures Relating to the Old Testament'' (2nd ed., 1969). Colophons are also found in the
Pentateuch
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
, where an understanding of this ancient literary convention illuminates passages that are otherwise unclear or incoherent. Examples are
Numbers
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
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
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
37:2a, a colophon that concludes the histories (''
toledot
Toledot, Toldot, Toldos, or Toldoth (—Hebrew for "generations" or "descendants," the second word and the first distinctive word in the ''parashah'') is the sixth weekly Torah portion (, ''parashah'') in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. T ...
'') of
Jacob
Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...
.
An extensive study of the eleven colophons found in the book of Genesis was done by Percy John Wiseman. Wiseman's study of the Genesis colophons, sometimes described as the
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. Original ...
, has a detailed examination of the catch phrases mentioned above that were used in literature of the second millennium B.C. and earlier in tying together the various accounts in a series of tablets.
Printed books
![Colophon (end note) to the printed copy of the Diamond Sutra, ( Dunhuang)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Colophon_%28end_note%29_to_the_printed_copy_of_the_Diamond_Sutra%2C_%28_Dunhuang%29.jpg)
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 or 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 proofreader or editor, or other more-or-less relevant details, might be added. A colophon might also be emblematic or pictorial rather than in words.
[ The normal position for a colophon was after the ]explicit
Explicit refers to something that is specific, clear, or detailed. It can also mean:
* Explicit knowledge, knowledge that can be readily articulated, codified and transmitted to others
* Explicit (text) The explicit (from Latin ''explicitus est'', ...
(the end of the text, often after any index or register).
Colophons sometimes contained book curse
A book curse was a widely employed method of discouraging the theft of manuscripts during the medieval period in Europe. The use of book curses dates back much further, to pre-Christian times, when the wrath of gods was invoked to protect books an ...
s, as this was the one place in a medieval manuscript where a scribe was free to write what he wished. Such curses tend to be unique to each book.
After around 1500 these data were often transferred to the title page
The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title, subtitle, author, publisher, and edition, often artistically decorated. (A half title, by contrast, displays only the title of a w ...
, which sometimes existed in parallel with a colophon, so that colophons grew generally less common in the 16th century.
The statements of printing which appeared (under the terms of the Unlawful Societies Act 1799) on the verso
' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet.
Etymology
The terms are shortened from Latin ...
of the title-leaf and final page of each book printed in Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
in the 19th century are not, strictly speaking, colophons, and are better referred to as "printers' imprints" or "printer statements".
In some parts of the world, colophons helped fledgling printers and printing companies gain social recognition. For example, in early modern Armenia printers used colophons as a way to gain "prestige power" by getting their name out into the social sphere. The use of colophons in early modern Armenian print culture is significant as well because it signaled the rate of decline in manuscript production and scriptoria use, and conversely the rise and perpetuation of printing for Armenians.
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 publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
s 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, the typeface(s) used in the page design and the kind of ink, paper, and its cotton content. Book publishers Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...
, the Folio Society
The Folio Society is a London-based publisher, founded by Charles Ede in 1947 and incorporated in 1971. Formerly privately owned, it operates as an employee ownership trust since 2021.
It produces illustrated hardback editions of classic fic ...
and O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...
are notable for their substantial colophons.
Websites
Some web pages also have colophons, which frequently contain ( X)HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...
, CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
, or usability standards compliance information and links to website validation tests.[Some examples include: ]
See also
* Edition notice
* Flannel panel
* Indicia
*Jerusalem Colophon The Jerusalem Colophon is a colophon found in a number of New Testament manuscripts, including Λ (039), 20, 153, 157, 164, 215, 262, 300, 376, 428, 565, 566, 686, 718, 728, 748, 829, 899, 901, 922, 980, 1032, 1071, 1118, 1121, 1124, ...
*Union label
A union label (sometimes called a union bug) is a label, mark or emblem which advertises that the employees who make a product or provide a service are represented by the labor union or group of unions whose label appears, in order to attract cus ...
and printer's mark
A printer's mark, device, emblem or insignia is a symbol that was used as a trademark by early printers starting in the 15th century.
The first printer's mark is found in the 1457 Mainz Psalter by Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer. One of the m ...
*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. Original ...
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Colophon (Publishing)
Book design
Book terminology
*Colophon
Publishing
Scribes
Typography