[DCRM-L] Complicated pagination/signatures

[Cataldo, Ashley]

I’m hoping for your thoughts on how to refer to specific pages in books with complicated pagination and signature statements.

I was a student in Deborah Leslie’s Rare Book School cataloging class this past summer, and we’ve been communicating about one title with especially complicated pagination/signatures, the 1735 edition of: Chamberlayne, John. Magnae Britanniae Notitia. (ESTC T54594)

ESTC has pagination: [18], 461, [1]; 8, 20, [4], 21-244, [4], 245-261, [5]; 80 p.
Signatures are: A⁸(-A1) b² B-2F⁸ 2G⁸(-2G8) chi²; ²[A]⁸ B⁸(B2+chi 1.2) C-P⁸ Q⁸(Q2+chi 1.2) R² T ⁴(-T4); ³A-E⁸.

The ESTC record states: “After p. 20 comes a page numbered 21* and then three pages with asterisks in place of pagination; after p. 244 comes a page numbered *244 and then three pages with similar asterisks.” But the ESTC record does not indicate that p. [263-264] of the second part are actually asterisked and that p. [265-266] are unnumbered.


The copy in hand lacks p. 9-12 of the second count of the second part.  After p. 80 of the third part are bound:

  1.  Two of the asterisked pages from the second part (i.e., p. [263-264]; leaf T2)
  2.  P. 1-8 of the second count from the second part (leaves ²[A]3-²[A]6)
  3.  Two unnumbered pages (i.e., p. [265-266], or leaf T3)

If you were to write a copy-specific note to describe the pages bound out of order, how would you refer to them?  If this book were not a cataloging priority, and so not given the cataloging time to craft a signature statement, would you consider referring to pages instead of leaves in the local note?

Thank you,
Ashley Cataldo

Ashley Cataldo
American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, Massachusetts 01609
acataldo at mwa.org<mailto:acataldo at mwa.org>

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