Specimen pages of Korean movable types (Charles E. Tuttle’s copy)

Collected & described by Melvin P. McGovern. Los Angeles : Dawson’s Book Shop, 1966. Colophon: ‘Of this edition, three hundred copies have been printed for sale. Of these, ninety-five copies comprise the Primary Edition and are numbered from I to XCV. The remaining copies are numbered from 96 through 300. This copy is number [in manuscript] A, out of series (Tuttle) / For Mr. & Mrs Charles Tuttle who have heard much & seen nothing these five years. Peter Brogren‘. Folio, original quarter white cloth over embossed handmade paper covered boards, frontispiece, pp 73, with 22 mounted specimen leaves (in facsimile) from 15th-19th centuries, identified in Korean as well as in English; bibliography; housed in a cloth slipcase; a fine presentation copy from the book’s printer, Peter Brogren of The Voyagers’ Press, Tokyo, produced out of series for the publisher and bookseller Charles E. Tuttle (1915-1993), a pre-eminent figure in the world of books and printing in East Asia in the modern era.

In Korea movable wood type was in use by the end of the fourteenth-century, and movable metal type by the beginning of the fifteenth. In this volume, Melvin McGovern, Director of Education at the United States Army Headquarters in Korea, has assembled in a leaf book specimens of Korean printing in a combination of bronze and wood typography, spanning the years 1420 – 1848. Of the edition of 300 copies, the first 95 are designated the ‘Primary edition’, and contain all original specimen leaves from the dates indicated. Copies numbered 96 – 200 had a combination of original specimens and facsimile leaves, the originals replaced with facsimile leaves printed on traditional paper. Copies numbered 201 – 300 had facsimile leaves only (Review in The Library Quarterly, Volume 37, Number 4, Oct., 1967, p. 401).

This is an out of series copy, outside of the 300 numbered copies which contained a selection of original leaves, presented by Brogen to the Tuttles, and contains entirely facsimiles of the original leaves which were included in copy III of the Primary Edition, which was Brogen’s own copy of the work.

An important scholarly survey of the history of printing in Korea.

Provenance :

Peter Brogen, printer, Tokyo

gifted to Charles E. Tuttle, publisher and owner of Tuttle Corporation, Tokyo

transferred to Nicholas Ingleton, subsequent owner of Tuttle Corporation, Tokyo, with his bookplates

by descent