ABSTRACT
Mezzotint for fine illustration drove out line-engraving in England, where it became so naturalized as to be called by the French la maniere anglaise; but for cheaper work line-engraving, for all its laboriousness, continued to be used. It is found that printing in more than one colour was the object of early experiment, since the finer manuscript book had been richly decorated in colours, and even the commoner book normally had rubrisher’s capitals in red and blue. The normal method of putting books with coloured illustrations on the market was for the publisher to employ professional colourists to colour the engravings by hand in a limited number of copies. In printing, the colours should not lie one over another in too solid a mass, or there will be obliteration instead of mixture. Woodcut and line-engraving on copper were both in existence in Germany at the invention of printing.
