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History of Printing

History of the Book and Printing

The history of printing and the book arts is one of the primary interests of Special Collections. Highlights include:

  • A collection of two dozen incunabula including a splendid copy of Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum (1493)
  • Numerous sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century titles from important printers such as Aldus Manutius, the Elzevirs, the Plantin-Moretus family, Baskerville, Bodoni, and others

These materials provide an essential learning laboratory for students and faculty interested in the history and technologies of the book.  They also complement and provide a touchstone for a campus-wide interest in the history and future of media, communications, and disruptive technologies such as the Internet and the printing press.

Finding Aids for the History of Printing

Anthony C. DeBellis Collection of Humanistic Literature.

Biographical Sketch Anthony C. DeBellis taught Italian language and literature at the University of Missouri from 1966 to 1981. Most of his rare…

Dime Novels.

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Dime novels were published from the middle nineteenth century through the early twentieth century and were largely pulp fiction aimed at a…

Frank Luther Mott Collection of American Best Sellers, 1662-1945.

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Scope and Contents The earliest book Mott considered for inclusion was Michael Wigglesworth'sThe Day of Doom(Cambridge: Samuel Green, 1662), and the…

Incunabula

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The Department of Rare Books and Special collections maintains a small collection of incunabula (European books printed before 1501) and early printed…

Pages from the Past Collection

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Pages from the Past is a collection of original manuscript and rare book leaves compiled and sold by a New York book dealer Alfred W. Stites from 1964…

Press Ephemera Collection.

Scope and Contents The collection contains material on private and specialty presses, dating primarily from the 1980s to the present. Many items in…

Rare Books

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The Rare Books Collection is the default designation for materials in Special Collections that are acquired as individual items. Like Special…

Related Exhibits

Engraved Throughout

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This exhibition features engraved books housed in Special Collections & Rare Books, and includes some of the finest engraved books...

Many Happy Returns

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This exhibit brings together a selection of items associated with the most important literary anniversaries celebrated in 2016.

Incunables in Special Collections

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Printing with moveable type began in Europe in the 1450s in the German city of Mainz with the Gutenberg Bible...

Selected Items

Declamationes pseudo-Quintilianeae (Maiores)

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Title from incipit (leaf A2 recto).
Imprint from Goff.
Signatures: A-I⁶.
Capital spaces.
Not in Rhodes.
A textbook or rhetoric for Roman lawyers,…

Epistolae. 1495

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Imprint from colophon.
Book was finished on Wednesday, March 11 1495: "Die & hora Mercurii, Vigilia Diui Gregorii. Anno salutis. Mcccclxxxxv." Cf.…

Quadragesimale de floribus sapientiae

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"Incipit quadragesimale de floribus sapiēte": fol. [a2]
Incipit Quadragesimale de floribus sapie[n]tie peroptimu[m] editu[m] [et] compillatu[m] /…

De natiuitatibus.

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Contents: Astronomicon, by M. Manilius--Phaenomena, by Aratos, in Latin and Greek with commentaries.--Sphaera, by Proclus Diadochus, in Latin and…

Dialogus inter clerum et militem.

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Caption title.
Imprint from colophon.
Signatures: a⁸.
The title on the piece contains medieval manuscript abbreviations not reproduced…

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