Bookplates are typically paper labels that, in addition to the book-owner’s name, may contain the words “From the library of…” or, the Latin equivalent, “Ex libris” (from/out of the books…).  There may also be an admonition or threat, such as “The ungodly borroweth and payeth not again.” Or, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be….”  Sir Walter Scott’s bookplate read, “Please return this book; I find that though many of my friends are poor mathematicians, they are nearly all good bookkeepers.”  Schoolchildren used to write in their books things such as, “I pity the lake, I pity the brook; I pity the one that takes this book!”

Bookplates originated in Germany; the earliest known, dating from around 1450, belonged to Johannes Knabensberg, called Igler (German, for hedgehog), chaplain to the Schönstett family.  His bookplate – a woodcut about 5-1/2” x 7-1/2” – depicts a hedgehog with an inscription which translates as, “Hans Igler that the hedgehog may kiss you.”  There is some doubt about the date, because printing from movable type was introduced at about the same time; there would only have been a few printed books available in which to paste bookplates.  Manuscript volumes were sufficiently unique to provide their own identification, and family arms were frequently added – especially to Books of Hours.  Many sources regard the first bookplate, also German, as that of Brother Hildebrand Brandenburg (Brother Hilprand of Biberach).  His bookplate (Figure 5) was in the books he presented to the Carthusian Monastery of Buxheim; it has been dated 1470-1480, and is hand-colored.  Bookplates received a big boost in popularity when Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) started to engrave them; he engraved about twenty, and set the style for bookplates that continues to this day.  Here is another early bookplate (Figure 6), from about 1520, which belonged to Jakob Hainrichmann, Prebendary of Augsburg [ a prebendary is a clergyman who receives a subsistence allowance, or stipend (prebend) from the state for officiating and serving in the church].  His bookplate, a woodcut, is also hand-colored.  Incidentally, the letters “S.M.C.” in his bookplate stand for the Latin phrase, spes mea christus, Christ My Hope.

click image to enlarge (108K) Figure 5

click image to enlarge (141K) Figure 6

Early in 1891, a few bookplate collectors met in London to establish the Ex Libris Society, and, at the end of the first year, the Society had 300 members, and began publishing its Journal of the Ex Libris Society.  By 1897, a list had been compiled of no fewer than 1,500 artists and engravers who had executed bookplates.  The first bookplate collector’s society in the United States was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1896.  California had its own society, The California Book-Plate Society.  In 1972, the American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers celebrated its 50^th anniversary (their membership directory contained 118 bookplates owned or designed by their members!).  There are also bookplate collectors’ societies in Britain, Germany, Austria, and France.

Today, with modern photomechanical methods, laser scanners, and computers, bookplates are quite easily made, and even printed on pre-gummed paper, compared to the expensive copper and steel engravings of the past.

The principal decorative device on bookplates, especially in the past, is some heraldic device or arms, although it may be allegorical or symbolic, indicating the owner’s occupation, profession, hobby, or interest(s).  Indeed, many book owners have more than one design of bookplate, and may have a different one for each section of their libraries.  Many Sherlockians, for example, have special bookplates made up just for their books on or about Sherlock Holmes.  Erotica is still another specialty area; these erotic bookplates usually say Ex Eroticis, or Ex Libris Eroticis (one of the reference books at the end of this article describes and illustrates 109 erotic bookplates from international private collections). 

I thought it would be interesting to survey bookplates that depicted microscopes, or microscopical subjects, or that belong(ed) to microscopists.  My survey is based on some standard bookplate reference works, listed at the end of this column, on my personal bookplate collection, and, in one case, on information supplied by a fellow collector.