Bookplates, once used by buyers to assert their ownership of a book, today have dedicated collectors and a market that few in India know about

The first thing that many readers of books do on buying a book is to write their names somewhere on the preliminaries, that is on the title page or at the back of it to assert their ownership. This is instinctual, like marking a boundary line around a newly-purchased plot of land or raising a hedge or a wall around one’s house. Some people even print labels with their names to glue them onto the pages of their books. Others get stamps or perforated seals made. Such practices may go well with plain or ordinary books, but few, if any, readers or collectors would treat a great collectable book in this manner because that would be tantamount to disfiguring its pristine looks. They might, if they must, at best insert a personalised label somewhere inside.

Marking ownership on possessions is a common instinct. In the early days of book printing and for several centuries thereafter, recording ownership was considered especially de rigueur as books were then scarce, costly and valuable, because so many of them was handcrafted and handcoloured at a great expense and with much labour. Book thefts were then not all so uncommon and the loss of a book was, therefore, greatly mourned because only a few copies of a book would be there. That was the reason why books in early days in Europe – where printing, with moving type first, began sometimes in 1450 or so – were chained to posts and pews or benches in churches and monasteries, and why severe curses were laid on book thieves. Early books were elaborately designed and beautifully crafted. So, when bookplate labels first appeared, they too were elaborately engraved.

>They were then called ex-libris, Latin for 'from the books or library of…' Today, in English, they are called bookplates, though the term ex-libris has not gone out of fashion altogether. The first ex-libris appeared in Germany, the first home of moving type, a few decades after the printing of the first book. The earliest recorded ex-libris dates from 1480. The practice caught on quickly, first, among book lovers in Germany, and soon thereafter elsewhere in Europe. These bookplates were an elaborate affair. Most often they showed the owners’ shield, motto, coat-of-arms or crest and sometimes his name too. That was meant to identify the owner of the book. In the early days, they were printed from woodcuts and afterwards from copper and steel plates. In those days, only the princes, knights, courtiers and high court officials could afford to acquire a book. They had all their family crests and coat-of-arms, which were widely recognised and acknowledged. When, in later years, printing spread more widely and books became more easily available and accessible to commoners without family crests, simple typographical devices carrying merely the name or initials of the names of the owners became acceptable; these came to be called book labels rather than ex-libris or bookplates. While labels were a simple affair, bookplates continued to be created as elaborate, often allegorical, devices; an art form in its own right. Some engravers solely specialised in designing bookplates.

designing bookplates. In the 19th century, old bookplates began drawing attention of book historians and book fanciers. Depending on their particular fancy, collectors began looking for bookplates of particular libraries, public or private, or the ones made by particular artists. The publication of a book, A Guide to the Study of BookPlates, by one Lord de Tabley in England in 1880 set the fashion for collecting bookplates. The book thus launched a new pastime and opened a new field of social history. Soon bookplate collectors began organising societies of collectors. The first such society was founded in England in 1891, then in Germany and France and next in the US. As societies mushroomed, so did journals on bookplate collecting. I enrolled as a member of one such society in London some years ago and learnt much of book lore from that association. The most important benefit I derived from the membership of this society was that I was able to buy a very interesting treatise on Indian bookplates that was published in a limited numbered edition by it for members. This was Some Indian and Related Bookplates by Brian North Lee. This was a revelation to me as I had never seen anything like that in print in all my book collecting years. Absolutely nothing like that. Not even an article in any of our magazines or magazine sections of our daily papers. Then, as I leafed through the pages of Lee’s work, vague recollections of some bookplates similar to those given in the book began to come to my mind. Some pasted on the first paste-up pages of some books, others on the first free end-paper. Also, some labels, stamps and seals of ownership. I rushed to my basement library and began furtively looking for them. I was able to find some but most others remained only a vague memory. I did come across some nice Indian bookplates by chance when I picked a book here or there from a bookshelf but nothing by way of an organised search.

My interest in this sphere faded soon and I forgot all about Indian bookplates until I chanced on Lee’s book yet again. I am sure some day some young Indian will get attracted to the subject and discover many more bookplates with Indian associations. But that I am sure will be a demanding task because there is no library in India that I know of that has any stock of bookplates.