Glossary of Rare Book Terms

What is a rare book? What is signed versus inscribed? What is a first edition? What does 8vo stand for?
Find some of the common jargon booksellers and book collectors often use.

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Woodcut
One of the earliest forms of printed illustration in which an impression is taken from an inked form cut in a block of soft wood. The design of a woodcut is of bold black lines or areas depicting a design against a white background (relief) whereas that of wood engraving is the reverse (intaglio).
Wove Paper
Paper with an uneven, granulated texture, mostly made on a continuous, close-meshed wire belt. Invented by James Whatman the elder about 1755, it has been the usual paper for ordinary book-printing since the early 19th century.
It is distinct in its method of manufacture from laid paper and is normally distinguishable from it by the absence of chain lines and wire (or laid) lines.