How to Describe Rare Books, Manuscripts, Autographs, Maps, Prints, Atlases, First Editions, Illustrated Books - Glossary in English
| Label | |
|---|---|
| Label | |
| Laminate |
The thin plastic layer covering the dust jacket of some books. |
| Large paper copy |
A special edition printed with the pages reconfigured to result in larger leaves with very wide page margins; the text of the individual pages remaining the same as the normal edition; usually... |
| Leaf (leaves) |
Refers to the smallest, standard physical unit of paper in a printed piece; in the case of books and pamphlets, usually with a printed page on each side of a leaf; a broadside is printed on a... |
| Leather edge | |
| Leatherette |
An imitation of grained leather, produced from a strong, machine-glazed base paper. Many small prayer books, for example, are leatherette. |
| Legend, caption | |
| Length | |
| Leporello | |
| Letter press | |
| Levant |
Elegant and highly polished morocco goatskin leather with a grain-pattern surface. |
| Libraire | |
| Librarian | |
| Library | |
| Licensed edition | |
| Ligature | |
| Light weight paper (Bible paper) | |
| Limited edition |
Book intended to have a finite number of copies, usually intended as a collectible or artificial “rarity.” Often each volume in the edition is supplied with a specific number, and can be signed... |
| Limp cover |
A book that has a flexible cloth, leather, or vellum cover. In the last quarter of the 18th century and the first quarter of the 19th, limp leather covers were commonly used for books to be carried... |
| Literary almanach | |
| Lithography |
One of a class of processes termed planographic, in which the printing surface (stone, zinc or a similar smooth-surfaced material) is not incised but instead treated with a medium that selectively... |
| Lithography | |
| Livre de peintre | |
| Livre truffé | |
| Livre-objet | |
| Loose |
When a book has been read carelessly or too often, and has become loose and sloppy in its binding. |
| Loose-leaf |
The binding of individual sheets of paper in an exchangeable form, for pages to be added, removed, or relocated in the book. Loose-leaf bindings are used wherever records of repeatedly changing... |
| Loss |
Parts of the paper or cloth in or on a book which were originally part of the jacket or book binding but which have removed or worn away from use and are no longer present. |
| Lot | |
| Lower case (type) | |
| Lower edge | |
| Lower margin | |
| Lumbeck (Paperback binding) |
