Did you ever wonder what all those numbers and brackets meant in a description of the number of pages in a book? Well there are rules for writing down the number of pages in a book. Properly the subject should be termed pagination and is just a subset of collation although in modern books the two can be the same. Collation, in the bibliographers sense, is "the process of comparing the book in hand with another, or to a cannon by which its completeness can be established", see ABC For Book Collectors by John Carter.

First let's go through a few examples of pagination which might make it easier to envision my long-winded explanation of pagination:

[25] p.	Count reveals 25 pages (printing on both sides)
33, [31] leaves	First 33 leaves are numbered; the last 31 unnumbered
[iv], ii-ix, [4], 2-155,[3]	4 unnumbered pages followed by 8 Roman numbered pages marked ii through ix followed by 4 unnumbered page followed by 154 Arabic numbered pages marked 2 through 155 followed by 3 unnumbered pages.

Oh, and one other thing needs to be added. That is each example should also have as part of the explanation "Starting with the first page with printing on it and ending with the last page with printing on it."

Now to the description. From what I understand, the way to paginate is to start with the first printed page. Generally this is something like the title page and is unnumbered. Now find the first numbered page. This gives us the start of the pagination. If the number is a Roman number, use Roman numbers to start and if it is an Arabic number use Arabic numbers. Put the number of unnumbered pages in brackets. For example suppose the first page is the title page and there are four unnumbered pages and then a page numbered ii. You would put down [iv] to start your pagination.

The next thing put down for the pagination generally depends on whether the page number above was Roman or Arabic. If it were Arabic, i.e. the page was numbered 2 (and you initially put down [4] to start), then you could skip this part where we assume it was a Roman number. Now look for the last page numbered in the Roman numbers. This gives the next part to write down and is simply the initial Roman number, a dash, and the final Roman number. Continuing our example, suppose the last Roman number was ix. You would then put down ", ii-ix" [without the quotes]. That is we would now have [iv], ii-ix.

The next item will again be a number in brackets if there are any unnumbered pages but this time in Arabic numbers followed by the Arabic number of the first Arabic numbered page, a dash and the Arabic Number of the last Arabic numbered page. Continuing our example, suppose there were two unnumbered pages following the last Roman number, then a page numbered 3, then 157 Arabic number pages. Our pagination would look like [iv], ii-ix. [2], 3-159 at this point. If that were the end of the printed text we would be finished (unless there were unnumbered plates inserted or something else one generally doesn't run across). However, if there were more unnumbered pages with text, you would end with the Arabic number of unnumbered pages with text in brackets.

I think that's about as much as I can stand right now. For some more information on pagination see the BookThink article Basic Cataloguing. Oh, and for a few examples and other points on identification of early works see the article on Bibliography of American Literature, also on BookThink.

>> 'til next time - DW <<