Maps in books: The mise en page as a type of materiality

CARLA LOIS

Nueva York

Mesa redonda; Bibliography Week 2022; 2022

The Bibliographical Society of America

I will analyze two different editions. Actually, I won’t analyze the entire books, but a specific aspect related to the place that maps had in those books, how the place of maps in books changed from one edition to another and its potential implications.Obviously, maps, gravures and other figures used to change from one edition to another. That is not the point. I’m interested here in analyzing how the mise en page in general and the mise en page of maps in books involve many aspects related with the ways readers approach, read and interpretate the content of the book.Yet, comparing just two editions of the same book I would like to discuss the different ways in which maps have been adapted to the economy of space in books [diapo]. [by “the economy of space” I mean all the decisions implied in the mise en page: do the map deserve half or a whole page? Which is the better size typo for the title? Is it convenient to organize the text in one or two colons? and so on).The use of the space of a page, what I’d like to call “the spatiality of the page,” and what is also known as the page layout is an absolutely relevant issue concerning the materiality of a book. One could even say that the spatiality of the page has a similar status as the type of paper, the typography, etc.). My analysis on the meaning’s variations associated to the position that a map occupies in a book assumes, from a material culture historical approach that, paying attention to the page layout would allow us and then would lead us to look at maps bounded in books beyond the content or literal geographical data of maps.