The Problem of the Missale Speciale

Bibliographical Society, London, first edition, 1967. Cloth, 8vo,. xxi, 400 pp, plates. A closely argued yet compellingly readable analysis of the evidence for the place and date of this Missale, which had been claimed as Gutenberg's first production and so the first book printed from movable type, before being redated to about 1473. Paul Needham has written: "Stevenson lived to see [The Problem of the Missale speciale] acclaimed as a masterpiece. It is, indeed, one of the classics of bibliographical literature. To my mind... The Problem of the Missale speciale stands alongside John Carter and Graham Pollard's Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth-Century Pamphlets (1934) as a work that invites repeated reading not simply for the importance of its results, its decisive contributions to bibliographical method, its exemplification of the bibliographical mind at work, but also for the sheer pleasure and vitality of its prose." Contents: I The Riddle of the Book; II Recent Typographical Evidence; III New Evidence in the Paper; IV The Cross Marks; V Time Lag and Identity; VI Runs and Remnants; VII The Bull's Heads; VIII The Mills in the St Albantal; IX The Date of the Missal; X The Search for Place and Printer; Excursus: I The Two Settings of the Canon; II Thomas Dorniberg; III The Watermark Maker; IV The Movement of the Mark on the Mould; V German and Swiss Research on the Paper in the Missal; VI Watermarks in the Missale Speciale and Abbreviatum; Index. Fine.