2 July 2024

In 1692 a riding manual by the author ‘J.M.’ titled Die bey dem Hause Braunschweig-Lüneburg anjetzo übliche Bereit-Kunst was published by Hieronymus Friedrich Hoffmann in Celle (fig. 1a).
An edition of Johann Coelner’s Chronologia et syncrotema papatus was published by Andreas Grimm in Corbach in 1700.
An anonymous edition of a collection of stories titled Newe uberauß artige und Anmuhtige poßirliche Historien .
appeared in 1679 with fictitious publishing information stating it was printed ‘in Germany’. And in 1717 Rudolf and Gerard Wetstein issued a 19-volume complete edition of the works of the mystic Antoinette Bourignon (1616–1680).

This list could virtually go on forever – but what is it that these titles have in common? To put it briefly, all these works had been published before. At first glance, there is nothing remarkable about this. After all, books that sold well were often reprinted, of course. But new editions had to be reset in the era of manual typesetting – when books were printed with movable type – as the printing forms (the ‘set pages’) were dismantled after each sheet was printed, meaning the types were put back into the typesetting box to be used again later (a process known as the ‘typographic cycle’). New editions are thus fundamentally different from the original edition, even if the printers (or typesetters) often took pains to set the new edition true to line – or, in German book printers’ jargon, Männchen auf Männchen (type for type, fig. 2).

And what about the above-mentioned titles? The riding manual Bereit-Kunst by author Johann Misselhorn was first published by Andreas Holwein in Celle (fig. 1b) in 1685 as Lüneburgische neu eröffnete Manege oder Reit-Schule. It was republished in 1687 with the stamped addition ‘Verlegts Hieronymus Friederich Hoffmann’ (fig. 1c). Coelner’s Chronologia was originally published in 1675 under the same title, and the Newe uberauß artige und Anmuhtige poßirliche Historien had appeared in ‘Freystadt’ in 1674 under the title Theatri historici pontificio-catholici, centuriae duae. Das ist: Zwey-hundert bäpst-catholische Lehr-Geschichte, with the author’s name, Christoph Meander, included. Bourignon’s collection of works had first been published in 1686 by Hendrik Wetstein.

A look at the texts reveals certain peculiarities. Not only is the wording of the texts identical but so is the typesetting. How is this possible? A reprint usually requires new typesetting, after all. The explanation is simple: the publisher of the later edition had taken the remainders of the earlier edition and reintroduced them onto the market. All one had to do was compose a new title page (sometimes combined with a new foreword or new dedication) for the existing edition, remove the old title page and paste in the new one – and the new edition was done. It is because of this process that such editions are known as ‘Titelausgabe’ (reissue with a new printed title-page).
To direct attention away from these more or less bogus ‘reprints’, new titles were invented, as is the case with two of the editions presented here. This practice was not uncommon in the early modern printing industry, and it is certainly true that not all such reissues have been identified.

The complete edition of Bourignon’s works offers another example of a clever technique for reusing unsold remainders. Hendrik Wetstein, who had evidently acquired the individual French editions published by Pieter Arendsz between 1669 and 1684, came up with a new method for selling the books more effectively: he offered the individual works in a complete package. All he had to do was introduce an additional title page with the collective title Toutes les oeuvres de Mlle. Antoinette Bourignonand his publishing information (‘Se trouvent à Amsterdam, chez Henry Wetstein, 1686’) and another undated title page for each volume titled Les oeuvres de Mlle. Antoinette Bourignon Contenues en dix-neuf volumes including a volume number (‘Volume I’ to ‘Volume XIX’) (fig 3). He left the old individual editions unchanged. Thus, with little effort, a new ‘complete edition’ was created that was probably easier to sell than the individual works. At any rate, more copies of Bourignon’s collected works have survived than the individual editions. Nevertheless, Wetstein’s edition does not appear to have been all that successful – otherwise there would have been no need to repackage the work for a ‘Titelausgabe’ some thirty years later in 1717.

NB: Some attempts to sell leftover stock were fraudulent, especially in instances where the ‘Titelausgabe’ appeared under a different title or even a different name. And even if a work claimed to have been published several times, this was not necessarily an indication of a successful publication. Sometimes the exact opposite was true!

Title image: Collective title from vol. 1 Les oeuvres de Mlle. Antoinette Bourignon Contenues en dix-neuf volumes“ from 1686 (HAB 738.21 Theol.)

PURL: http://diglib.hab.de/?link=189