page_title: Colophon (publishing)
section_title: Printed books
hierarchical_section_title: Colophon (publishing) / Printed books
caption_attribution_description: English: Colophon of John Fortescue (1567) A Learned Commendation of the Politique Lawes of Englande: VVherin by moste Pitthy Reasons &amp; Euident Demonstrations they are Plainelye Proued Farre to Excell aswell the Ciuile Lawes of the Empiere, as also all other Lawes of the World, with a Large Discourse of the Difference betwene the. ii. Gouernements of Kingdomes: Whereof the One is onely Regall, and the Other Consisteth of Regall and Polityque Administration Conioyned. Written in Latine aboue an Hundred Yeares Past, by the Learned and Right Honorable Maister Fortescue Knight, Lorde Chauncellour of England in the Time of Kinge Henrye the. vi. And Newly Translated into Englishe by Robert Mulcaster (1st English ed.), London: Imprinted ... in Fletestrete within Temple Barre, at the signe of the hand and starre, by Rychard Tottill OCLC: 837169265. The text of the colophon is as follows: "Imprinted at London, / in Fleetſtreete within Temple / Barre, at the ſigne of the / hand and ſtarre, by / Rychard Tottill, / 1567."
context_page_description: In publishing, a colophon is a brief statement containing information about the publication of a book such as the place of publication, the publisher, and the date of publication. A colophon may include the device of a printer or publisher. Colophons are correctly printed at the ends of books, but sometimes the same information appears elsewhere and many modern books bear this information on the verso of the title-leaf, which is sometimes called a "biblio-page" or the "copyright-page".
context_section_description: 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 (the end of the text, often after any index or register). After around 1500 these data were often transferred to the title page, which sometimes existed in parallel with a colophon.
  Colophons sometimes contained book curses, 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.
  In Great Britain 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 of the title-leaf and final page of each book printed in Britain 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 signalled 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 publishers 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, the Folio Society and O'Reilly Media are notable for their substantial colophons.
caption: The colophon of John Fortescue's A Learned Commendation of the Politique Lawes of Englande (1567),[10] which appears at the end of the book
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