Texts in Transit

Reviews / Votes

"Anyone studying the least detail of books printed or written in the second half of the fifteenth century, their texts, layout, decoration, rubrication, format, substrates, inks for writing or printing, pigments, secondary features, from cadels to apparently casual or incidental marks, now has a handbook packed with information on all these topics, to be read, marked, learned and inwardly digested, before attempting analysis or explanation of any of them."
Nicolas Barker, in: The Book Collector (Winter 2015), pp. 511-518.

"The fifteen essays in this volume together constitute a coherent statement of our most advanced knowledge in the field of incunabula studies ... Hellinga's view is Europe-wide and touches on cases in Italy, Germany, the Low Countries and England, and occasionally also in France and even Poland ... the volume may be consulted as though it was a reference work on the technique of incunabula printing."
Koen Goudriaan, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In: Quaerendo, Vol. 45, Nos. 3-4 (2015), pp. 332-336.

"Lotte Hellinga's collection of studies Texts in Transit ... offers a picture that is often rather more complicated than was imagined even when she began her systematic study of fifteenth-century printing."
David McKitterick, Trinity College, Cambridge. In: Times Literary Supplement, 1 May 2015, p. 29.

"The book as a whole will constitute an important reference point in bibliographical methodology, and its use in this respect is supported by a detailed subject index."
Brian Richardson, University of Leeds. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 68, No 3 (Fall 2015), pp. 1096-1097.

Lotte Hellinga "might justifiably be called the mother of the ISTC (Incunabula short title catalogue) and is without doubt one of the most respected and influential writers on incunabula of this or any other age. The present collection of essays is welcome for its gathering together of a group of papers (some not easy to find), for the revisions to and newly-forged links between those papers, and for the new material published here for the first time."
Paul W. Nash, in: Journal of the Printing Historical Society, New Series 24 (summer 2016), pp. 92-94.

"In der Welt der Wiegendrucke fuehrt kein Weg an Lotte Hellinga vorbei. [...] Angesichts von Hellingas vielfaeltigen Arbeitsgebieten und wegweisenden Veroeffentlichungen ist es ausserordentlich zu begruessen, dass 2014 ein Sammelband mit 15 Aufsaetzen erschien, die sie seit 1974 vorgelegt und an verstreuten und teils schwer zugaenglichen Stellen in Zeitschriften und Festschriften publiziert hatte. [...] Aus Bausteinen unterschiedlichen Alters und Materials zusammengesetzt, bildet [dieser Band] doch ein methodisch stabiles und homogenes Fundament, auf das sich alle weiteren Konstruktionen stuetzen koennen. Der Autorin gebuehrt dafuer unser dauerhafter Dank."
Bettina Wagner, Staatsbibliothek Bamberg. In: Informationsmittel fuer Bibliotheken, Bd. 25, Heft 1 (2017).

"Die hier versammelten Beitraege verschaffen dem Leser in ihrer Dichte nicht nur einen vorzueglichen Einblick in die Produktionsprozesse des fruehen gedruckten Buches, sondern legen auch ein beredtes Zeugnis der ueber Jahrzehnte erworbenen Erfahrung der Autorin auf diesem Gebiet ab."
Martin Wagendorfer, Universitaet Innsbruck. In: Mitteilungen des Instituts fuer OEsterreichische Geschichtsforschung, Bd. 124, Heft 1 (2016), S. 250.

"Il volume della Hellinga ... si pone come pietra miliare negli studi di incunabolistica sia per la lucidita del metodo che pervade ognuno dei saggi in esso contenuti, sia per la chiarezza con cui l'autrice dispiega le sue conoscenze al lettore aprendo agli studiosi nuove strade di indagine. Si tratta, in breve, di una raccolta fondamentale che non puo mancare tra gli scaffali di qualsiasi studioso del libro a stampa quattrocentesco e che sicuramente fara scuola per moltissimi anni a venire."
Natale Vacalebre, University of Pennsylvania. In: Bibliothecae.it, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2016), pp. 435-438.