Oak Knoll

First edition. (Bigmore & Wyman III, 79). Rebound in later cloth. Dutch title page has been damaged, and subsiquently repairded, effecting the publisher and date. Interior is in fine condition. Text in French and Dutch. Was translated into English by Kubler in his HISTORICAL TREATISES ... ON STEREOTYPING who claims that it is one of the two most important historical documents relating to the history of stereotyping. Westreenen was commissioned by the government to determine who had invented this process. He advances in a well-written manner the theory that D. Jean Mueller invented stereotyping and printed a Prayer Book in 1701 in Leyden using this process. The plates reproduce a page from this Prayer Book, a page from the first stereotyped Bible (1701) and a facsimile of a letter from Prosper Marchand stating that Mueller was the inventor of stereotyping. As Mueller did not actually use a mold but rather soldered actual type into a fixed form, Kubler says that his process was actually an intermediate step between printing from type and the stereotype as now known. From the Thomas M. Whitehead Collection of Books About Books.