Book People | September 2022 | Ian J. Kahn

Rare Books Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Books?

This is a test designed to determine your bookman's I.Q. A score of 20 right should entitle you to consideration as the editor of the next edition of "The Bookman's Glossary"; 18 or 19 right makes you a super-bookman. If you get 16 or 17 right, you are a top-flight bookman; 14 or 15 right, a competent bookman; 12 or 13 is fair; 10 or 11, a conditional-pass. No matter what your score, you can add to your bookman's vocabulary and background by owning and referring frequently to the latest edition of "The Bookman's Glossary." (Bowker).

(1.) incunabula
a. pirated editions
b. early medieval manuscripts
c. writings of the Incas
d. books printed before 1501 A.D.

(2.) half-tone
a. a line-cut
b. a photo-engraving
c. an en-space in type measurement
d. a semi-quaver

(3.) Bodoni
a. an Italian antiquarian
b. a typeface
c. an Italian bookseller known as "Bold-face Bodoni"
d. a Swiss printer of chap-books

(4.) bibelot
a. a decorative book
b. a small Bible
c. paraph
d. vellum

(5.) bowdlerized
a. pied (as type)
b. expurgated
c. illegible
d. laminated

(6.) perfect binding
a. glued binding
b. extremely durable binding
c. hand-tooled leather binding
d. side-stitching

(7.) colporteur
a. a traveling book agent
b. an American song writer
c. a French pamphleteer
d. a medieval songbook

(8.) palimpsest
a. hieroglyphic or cuneiform writing
b. folio editions of the 16th and 17th centuries
c. papyrus made from Nile River reeds
d. parchment written upon two or three times

(9.) fore-edge painting
a. the illustration on the front of a book jacket
b. pictures painted on the outer edges of a book
c. the actual illumination of a manuscript
d. a color process in printing known also as fourflushing

(10.) font
a. a hairline rule
b. a base for pamphlet binding
c. the manufacture of foolscap paper
d. an assortment of type

(11.) bibliophile
a. a bookseller
b. a Slavic bible
c. a collection of rare bibles
d. a lover of books

(12.) intaglio
a. one of six basic principles of printing
b. an Italian flat-bed press
c. a seraglio
d. an object pressed into the cover of a book

(13.) hornbook
a. an encyclopedia
b. a book about musical instruments
c. a primer
d. a dictionary

(14.) Jean Grolier
a. an early French bibliophile
b. a French encyclopedist
c. a 19th century French-Canadian publisher
d. the founder of Librairie Hachette

(15.) Grub Street
a. "Publishers' Row" in London
b. Rotten Row in London
c. literary hacks
d. book-worms

(16.) holograph
a. sans-serif
b. a manuscript wholly in the handwriting of its author
c. a manuscript for which the author receives no royalties
d. silk-screen printing

(17.) recto
a. an expression used by printers meaning "O.K. to print"
b. the correction of a printer's error
c. the right-hand page of a book
d. the last page of a book

(18.) Mathew Carey
a. a type designer
b. an early American bookseller and publisher
c. a partner in the early American publishing firm of Carey-Thomas
d. a Scottish publisher

(19.) Pica
a. a serif
b. twelve-point (type size)
c. a stencil
d. a tight-fisted bookmaker

(20.) variorum edition
a. any book of varied contents
b. a book of the hours
c. any anthology
d. a book with notes by various editors

Answers: 1, d; 2, b; 3, b; 4, a; 5, b; 6, a; 7, a; 8, d; 9, b; 10, d;
11, a; 12, a; 13, c; 14, a; 15, c; 16, b; 17, c; 18, b; 19, b; 20, d.