the book collector
giving a total of 148 leaves, so the Weatherup copy was thus missing the two complete signatures * and D. From these tick marks, the pagination, and the di V ering descriptions of missing leaves, it is clear that this small card (which has been carefully preserved) recorded his initial examination of the little volume and formed the basis of the information provided to Rosenbach. On 30 May 1934 James Weatherup wrote to his son Arthur including another version of his identification points list: The Psalm Book Author, or compiler name not known. size of book (about 7 1/2” or 8” x about 4 1/2”). I omitted to take the measurements. A great over- sight on my part. However although the above measurements are a usual 8vo size the book was really small 4to, and was one of my clues to the identification of it. Dr. Cotton – a leading bibliographical ex- pert of 100 years ago disputed the statement of Thomas in his History of Printing in America that he had seen an entire copy except the title page (which was missing) he describes it as 8vo but Dr. Cotton says he is mistaken in that as the size should be 4to. My find settles that point as it is a 4to. The Running Title (on top of leaves) is in Roman type & on the right hand page is printed Psalme, while that on the left is Psalm (another identification). Paging – there is not any paging on the leaves Admonition to the Reader on last page, followed by an Errata leaf entitled “Faults escaped in printing” number of leaves in its present condition 136. The Title page missing (it presumably would not have given any information as the Printer’s name & where published were not print- ed on it originally. The printer, however, was Steeven [sic] Daye, Cambridge, New England. Here we have the evidence of an inveterate book collector, the minutiae of taking measurements, analysing whether quarto or octavo, a methodical list of identification points built up from ex- amination of the volume. The question arises as to what information was available to James Weatherup to enable him to determine the edition and date of the book. In the above letter James Weatherup informed his son Arthur that the identification was based upon clues that matched Dr. Cotton’s statements, and disputed the statement
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