Belli Catilinarii et Jugurthini historiae. 12mo. [ii], 150pp. Imprint reads: Edinburgi, Gulielmus Ged, Aurifaber Edinensis, non Typis mobilis, et ut vulgo fieri solet, sed Tabellis seu Laminis suis, excudebat

[Ged, William (1690-1749), printer.] Sallust [Gaius Sallustius Crispus] (86-35 BCE). Belli catilinarii et jugurthini historiae. [2], 150pp. Edinburgh: William Ged, 1744. 129 x 176 mm. Mottled calf gilt ca. 1744, light wear, three areas of insect damage on the front cover. Small marginal tear in leaf C7, light toning, but very good. Early ownership inscription on the front flyleaf.

Second printing, with cancel title dated 1744, but printed from the same stereotype plates as the first edition of 1739. Ged's pocket edition of Sallust's histories was the first book to announce in print that it had been executed by this new method, as can be seen in the book's imprint:

"Edinburghi: Gulielmus Ged, Aurifaber Edinensis, non Typis mobilis, ut vulgo fieri solet, sed Tabellis seu Laminis fusis, excudebat" [Edinburgh: Printed by William Ged, Goldsmith of Edinburgh, not from movable type, as is commonly done, but from cast plates].

Stereotype printing is a method of printing that uses solid metal plates cast from molds made from the surface of already-set type, thus eliminating the need to reset type for future editions (a laborious and costly process) or to "lock up" expensive type in printing formes for months at a time. "Between Gutenberg's invention of printing with movable metal types and the arrival in our own time of ‘filmsetting' (photo-electric composition without the use of any types at all) . . . there has been only one really radical innovation: stereotype" (Carter, p. 161).

Stereotype printing was probably invented in Germany at the turn of the eighteenth century. Ged, a Scottish goldsmith turned printer, is thought to have begun experimenting with stereotype printing plates circa 1725; around 1729 he moved to London, where he and his partners were granted a license by Cambridge University to print Bibles and prayer books using his new method. The venture did not prosper and Ged returned to Scotland, where in 1736 he published a proposal to issue his edition of Sallust, to be printed "from the most beautiful small types done by plates." Ged's stereotype method failed to catch on with other printers, lapsing into obscurity after his death; the process was reinvented by Foulis and Tilloch in the 1780s and perfected by the Earl of Stanhope in the early years of the 19th century. John Carter, "William Ged and the invention of stereotype," The Library, 5th series, 15 (1960): 161-192.