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Latin Lessons
posted 06/25/03 Quarto. Octavo. Folio. Verso. What images do these words conjure up in your mind? For me, there was a vague association with Gutenberg and old moveable type, but I didn't really know what they meant. I thought I knew what verso meant, but my research proved me wrong. I typically use the word to signify the back side of the title page in a book. The verso of the title page is where much of the bibliographic information about the book, including CIP or Cataloging In Publication information from the Library of Congress. This helps librarians get details for the catalog record (the description of the book you find in our online catalog). In fact, verso means the back side of any page, or leaf, in a book. The front side is known as the recto. When you open a book, you are seeing the verso of the left-hand page and the recto of the right-hand page. The terms quarto, octavo, and folio have to do with the way parchment, and later paper, was folded to make books. Originally, page sizes were not standardized, because they were all based on the size of the animal that the sheepskin, or parchment, came from. Even when paper came into widespread use, the sizes varied quite a bit, but one common size for a papermaking tray was 19" by 25". When the paper was folded in half, making two leaves about 19" x 12 ½," the size was called a folio. If the same paper was folded in half again (12 ½" x 9 ½"), it was known as a quarto; and once again (9 ½" x 6 ¼") made an octavo. You may see the cryptic designation of 8vo. in descriptions of old books in catalogs or for sale. This is the abbreviation for octavo. You may also have seen books with uncut pages. Because I like models, I cut a 25" x 19" piece from butcher paper and folded it to octavo size; it all makes much more sense to me now that I have seen how the folding process works. For more information, see A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology from "Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books" on the Stanford University Web site, or Sotheby's Collecting Guide to Books & Manuscripts..
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