colophon

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:06 PM -0700 8/5/04, Benjamin J Barrett wrote:
>For the online AHD4, I find
>
>1. An inscription placed usually at the end of a book, giving facts
>about its publication.
>
>2. A publisher's emblem or trademark placed usually on the title page of
>a book.

Here's the OED:

  1. 'Finishing stroke', 'crowning touch'. Obs.

1621 BURTON Anat. Mel. III. iv. II. i. (1651) 693 His Colophon is how
to resist and repress Atheism.
1635 SWAN Spec. M. ix. §1 (1643) 420 He [God] comes to the Creation
of man, and makes him the Colophon, or conclusion of all things else.


2. spec.

    a. The inscription or device, sometimes pictorial or emblematic,
formerly placed at the end of a book or manuscript, and containing
the title, the scribe's or printer's name, date and place of
printing, etc. Hence, from title-page to colophon.
   In early times the colophon gave the information now given on the title-page.

1774 WARTON Hist. Eng. Poetry iii. 140 The name and date of
illuminator, in the following Colophon, written in letters of gold.
1824 Ibid. (1840) I. 187 note, The volume has this colophon. 'Here
endeth the lyfe of the moost ferefullest and unmercyfullest and
myschevous Robert the devill which was afterwards called the servaunt
of our Lorde Jhesu Cryste. Emprinted in Fletestrete in [at] the sygne
of the sonne by Wynkyn de Worde.'
1816 SCOTT Antiq. i, The volume was uninjured and entire from
title-page to colophon.
18.. DE MORGAN Difficulty of Descr. Bks. (L.), When the colophon, or
final description, fell into disuse..since the titlepage had become
the principal direct means of identifying the book.
1884 SALA in Illust. Lond. News 31 May 519/2 A literary vampire who
collects nothing but title-pages and colophons.


     b. = IMPRINT n. 3. U.S.

1930 Publishers' Weekly 19 Apr. 2113/1 The publishers must cut their
lists and have their colophons stand for a particular quality which,
in time, the bookseller will recognize and consider in his buying.
1948 Chicago Tribune 27 June IV. 5/1 The Wilson company uses the
lighthouse for its colophon.

larry