Printer's colophon

The achevé d'imprimer (printer's colophon) descends from the colophon of manuscripts and incunabula, which indicated on the last leaf the name of the craftsman and the date of completion. In the French book, the formula 'achevé d'imprimer pour la première fois le…' (completed printing for the first time on…) became fixed in the seventeenth century under the privilège system: the duration of the privilege granted by the king ran from that date, which therefore had to be printed. In the nineteenth century, the mention often disappeared behind the simple name of the printer, then returned in the twentieth, where it accompanies the statement of limitation and, since the 1943 law on legal deposit, the mandatory mentions on the last page.

For modern first editions, the printer's colophon is an essential reference point: the bibliographies of Talvart and Place or of Clouzot record it title by title, and comparing the copy with the reference makes it possible to distinguish the first printing from later impressions, which generally bear another date or another printer. It is read alongside the statement of limitation and the edition statement on the cover, and it also serves to date copies whose title page bears no year. Its presence forms part of the collation: a missing or replaced final leaf is a defect to be noted.

The first mistake is to believe that the printer's colophon dates the book's publication date; a book often appears several weeks later. The second is to take two copies bearing the same printer's colophon as being the same edition, whereas some publishers kept the original date on later impressions, sometimes for years. Lastly, for early books, the absence of a printer's colophon is the rule rather than a defect; it is the colophon, then the title page, that carry the dating elements.