Jeremy Norman’sHistoryofInformation.com Exploring the History of Information and Media through Timelines
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Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative CommonsThis is the only introduction in English that I have seen in a mid-19th century French bookseller's catalogue.
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative CommonsA very interesting advertisement for the then-new French illustrated periodical, L'Illustration. It is possible that the publishers of the magazine had this advertisement specially produced for insertion in Bossange's book.
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative CommonsIn his selection of presses Bossange featured machines typographiques that printed from 1000 to 4000 sheets per hour. He also sold the most popular iron hand presses. This is the first time that I found price information on the early French "machines typographiques."
A: Paris, Île-de-France, France
Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative CommonsThis plate printed in gold ink on a glossy purple background imitates the way that gold appears when stamped into leather.
In 1845 Parisian bookseller and supplier of equipment and services to the publishing industry, Hector Bossange issued a spectacular Catalogue de livres ... suivi de prix courants. The catalogue, which offered books in most European languages as well as English, contained around 30,000 items, and was probably more extensively illustrated than any other bookseller's catalogue of the time.
Bossange's catalogue was also distinctive for containing French, English and Spanish versions of his introduction. It is also the only bookseller's catalogue to offer printing machines and other printing and binding equipment for sale. The price information for presses and printing equipment offered in this catalogue is the first that I have seen for France at this time.