Rare Book School
Preliminary Reading List

Book Illustration Processes to 1900

Terry Belanger

Preliminary Advices

Before coming to class, please read (and, preferably, reread) all of:

Gascoigne, Bamber. How to identify prints, second edition (London [and NY]: Thames and Hudson, 2004).

Gascoigne is both comprehensive and excellent. The paperback costs $34.50 list, but check BestWebBuys or a similar Internet bookfinder to get the lowest online price. Many museum bookshops carry copies of the book, and in any event it should be relatively easy to get via interlibrary loan. There are plenty of copies of Gascoigne available in class, but you may wish to bring a copy with you to your session, so that you can review various sections of the book outside of class, between sessions or overnight.

I'll be referring constantly to Gascoigne in class, and you will get a lot less out of this course if you have failed to look seriously at the book before coming to RBS.

There is always a waiting list for this course (and usually a long one). If you find that you do not have time to read Gascoigne before coming to RBS, please withdraw from the course or postpone attending until another time in order to make way for someone who is able to complete the advance reading.

You may also want to take a good look at an excellent general history of prints and printmaking:

Hults, Linda C. The print in the Western world: an introductory history (Madison, WI: Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996); $70 list.

Hults' admirable book provides a starting point from which to acquire a broad overview both of separately published prints and of prints in books.