Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Octavo   Listen
adjective
Octavo  adj.  Having eight leaves to a sheet; as, an octavo form, book, leaf, size, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Octavo" Quotes from Famous Books



... speaking of this subject, it may be proper to mention (as the very extreme anachronism which the case admits of) that Mr. Archdeacon W. has absolutely introduced the idea of sin into the "Iliad;" and, in a regular octavo volume, has represented it as the key to the whole movement of the fable. It was once made a reproach to Southey that his Don Roderick spoke, in his penitential moods, a language too much resembling that of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... in the Mask had been thus delivered over to the curiosity of the public, the 'Siecle de Louis XIV' (2 vols. octavo, Berlin, 1751) was published by Voltaire under the pseudonym of M. de Francheville. Everyone turned to this work, which had been long expected, for details relating to the mysterious prisoner about whom everyone ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... was as energetic and effective in the internal administration of his kingdom as in foreign affairs. M. Leopold Delisle, one of the most learned French academicians, and one of the most accurate in his knowledge, has devoted a volume of more than seven hundred pages octavo to a simple catalogue of the official acts of Philip Augustus, and this catalogue contains a list of two thousand two hundred and thirty-six administrative acts of all kinds, of which M. Delisle confines himself to merely setting forth ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Apostle in one place or another, and with the exception of 1 Timothy and Titus he gives the names of the persons addressed; so that the identification is complete. The list of references to St Paul's Epistles alone occupies two octavo pages of three columns each in the index to Stieren's Irenaeus. Yet of all this Eusebius 'knows nothing.' In a previous chapter indeed he happens to have quoted a passage from Irenaeus, relating to the succession of the Roman bishops, in which ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... the whole top-floor, and the book-cases shall be built in the walls, and there shall be a lovely blue-glass sky-light," etc. Moreover, although she could not tell the difference between an Elzevir and a Pickering, or between a folio and an octavo, Alice was very proud of our little library, and I recall now with real delight the times I used to hear her showing off those precious books to her lady callers. Alice made up for certain inaccuracies of information with a distinct enthusiasm and garrulity that never failed to impress ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... Cooper's "Letter to His Countrymen." Its publication was no sudden freak, for the year before he had announced the preparation of it. The work is a thin octavo of a little more than one hundred pages; but the damage it wrought him was out of all proportion to its size. The first half of it was taken up with a reply to the comments and criticisms made in the New ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... contained Comus and Lycidas, which had been previously printed. With the exception of three sonnets and a few scraps of translation, Milton had written nothing but pamphlets since his return from Italy. At the beginning of the volume, which is a small octavo, was a portrait of the poet, most villainously executed. He was really thirty-seven, but flattered himself, as men of that age will, that he looked ten years younger; he was therefore much chagrined to find himself represented as a grim-looking gentleman of at least ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... "All that is extant of what can properly be called the legislation of the first twelve years of the colony of Plymouth, suffices to cover in print only two pages of an octavo volume." (History of New England, Vol. I., ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... a time, despatched a pretentious octavo, in the Edinburgh, with a critique, one paragraph in length; that achievement is matched by the disposal of a work in the Courier and Enquirer, as follows, by ingeniously employing the opening sentence ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... published a work unfavourable to the cause of Scottish Episcopacy. His most important work, "An Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, from the first appearance of Christianity in that kingdom," was published in the year 1788, in two octavo volumes. This publication, which is arranged in the form of letters to a friend, and dedicated, in elegant Latin verse, "Ad Filium et Episcopum," (to his son, and bishop), by partaking too rigidly of a sectarian character, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... which he can use handily, and the same of all useful arts and sciences; knows all the common plots of plays and novels, and the stock company of characters that are continually coming on in new costume; can give you a criticism of an octavo in an epithet and a wink, and you can depend on it; cares for nobody except for the virtue there is in what he says; delights in taking off big wigs and professional gowns, and in the disembalming and unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet he is as tender ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... found my two octavo volumes did not afford me nearly enough space to say my say respecting the country traversed, for they are brought to an end somewhat abruptly by a hurried return from Limoges to Paris; whereas my ramble was much more extended, including both the upper and lower ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... the celebrated Laurens letter,[9] the other containing information as to the part taken by blacks in the struggle.[10] We inferred from these works that much remained to be told, and find our surmise verified by an examination of the neatly printed octavo of 215 pages, now before us, in which is given a mass of information, fully establishing the fact that the negro played no mean part in the army of the Revolution, and, we may add, suggesting the reflection ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Luther and Erasmus. Am I right in supposing that the image of the great Reformer is found for the first time on the verse of the title-page of his treatise De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae, 4to., s.l.v.a.; and that the wished-for representation of Erasmus may be seen in the small octavo volume, entitled Bellaria Epistolarum Erasmi Rot. et Ambrosii Pelargi vicissim missarum, Colon. 1539? Some of your readers will doubtless be acquainted with what seems to be a very accurate and complete performance, the Vita ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various

... mankind. The perfect candor of the author is one of the marked features of the discussion, and his style is a model of pure terse English writing, seldom, if ever, excelled by any scientific writer. The work is an octavo, most beautifully printed on tinted paper, and illustrated by many ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... be had separately. Price 25 cents each, or any five of them for One Dollar. They are printed on the finest white paper, and each forms one large octavo volume, complete in itself, neatly bound ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... though his work is trustworthy and authentic, it is destitute of the chief qualities requisite for the successful prosecution of so great an undertaking. It is—a rare fault in history—a great deal too short. It is not in two thin octavo volumes that the annals of the conflict of Europe and Asia for two centuries is to be given. It is little more than an abridgement, for the use of young persons, of what the real history should be. It may be true, but it is dull; and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... another duodecimo edition of the "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character," I gladly avail myself of the opportunity afforded me of reproducing some of the materials which had been added to the octavo edition, especially that part at page 322, etc., which advocated a modified interchange of pulpits between Episcopalian and Presbyterian clergymen; to add also some excellent Scottish stories which had been sent to me by kind friends. I am desirous also of repeating the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... our great men sometimes are about observing their own rules. Take an instance in Mr. Walker's octavo dictionary. Look for the word simeter, a small sword. You will find it spelled scimitar. Then turn over, and you will find it simitar, with the same definition, and the remark, "more properly cimetar." Then turn back, and find the correct word ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... Swedenborg are, the Heavenly Arcana, in twelve octavo volumes, giving an explanation of the books of Genesis and Exodus, being a key to what he calls the internal or spiritual sense of the sacred Scriptures. The next in importance is the Apocalypse Explained, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... it frequently happens, took an inadequate measure of his growing work. The remainder of the first period has filled two volumes in quarto, being the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes of the octavo edition.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... The World's Classics made its first appearance as an octavo volume of xxiv 352 pages, with ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... distinct paper from the Scientific American. THE SUPPLEMENT is issued weekly. Every number contains 16 octavo pages, uniform in size with Scientific American. Terms of subscription for Supplement, $5.00 a year, postage paid, to subscribers. Single copies, 10 cents. Sold by all news ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... quantities adequate to any effort at a marvellously small expenditure of material. In this form the Martialists assert that they obtain without waste all the potential energy stored in ... [About half a score lines, or two pages of an ordinary octavo volume like this, are here illegible.] She (Eveena?) was somewhat pale, but rose quickly, and greeted me with a smile of unaffected cheerfulness, and was evidently surprised as well as pleased that I was content to remain alone with her, our conversation turning chiefly on the lessons ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... beginning—quite oder beginning. Madam, since your husband have cut his stick"—— It may be supposed that this did not mend matters; and, reading that in the lady's countenance, the German drew out an octavo dictionary, and said, perspiring with shame at having a second time missed fire,—"Madam, since your husband have gone to kingdom come"—— This he said beseechingly; but the lady was past propitiation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... of considerable ability, but not comparable, I imagine, with Rapp. He appears to have been a fluent speaker; and on Sundays he delivered to the society a long series of discourses, which were after his death gathered together and printed in German in three ponderous octavo volumes. They concern themselves not only with religious and communistic thoughts, but largely with the minor morals, manners, good order in housekeeping, cleanliness, health observances, and often ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... these lines a revengeful answer to an article of his in the Globe, a newspaper which, as we soon learnt, he had founded in concert with Pierre Leroux, Dubois, Jouffroy, Remusat, and some others. We discovered too that our journalist was a freethinker as well, and author of a thick octavo book which had been condemned by the Index at Rome, a fact which did not prevent his dying in the most religious frame of mind possible, well nigh in the odour of sanctity. My tutor was, in truth, of too lofty an intelligence to persevere long in that religious nihilism, that denial ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... in the mixed verse-and-prose style which had been made popular by various writers, especially Chapelle, but which cannot be said to be very acceptable in itself. Taken together, they fill a volume of just over 500 average octavo pages in the standard edition of 1812; but their individual length is very unequal. The two longest, the fragmentary Quatre Facardins and the finished Le Belier, run each of them to 142 pages; the shortest, L'Enchanteur Faustus, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... not want a big ugly quarto; my soul sickens at the look of a quarto. I want a refined octavo, not large - not LARGER than the DONKEY ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the coachman and servants had taken leave. They could not sell the furniture, for it had been attached; there was not a single object of any value in the house. A goodly collection of pawntickets, forming a very instructive octavo volume, represented all the gold, silver, and jewelry. Berenice had kept back a couple of spoons and forks, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... first volume of our History appeared; it was an octavo, containing 871 pages, with good paper, good print, handsome engravings, and nicely bound. I welcomed it with the same feeling of love and tenderness as I did my firstborn. I took the same pleasure in hearing it praised and felt the same mortification in hearing ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... in defence of the Methodists and others against such gratuitous and unjust imputations, consisted of about thirty octavo pages, appeared over the signature of "A Methodist Preacher;" it was commenced near Newmarket, in a cottage owned by the late Mr. Elias Smith, whose wife was a sister of the Lounts—a woman of great excellence. It was written ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... Mirac. Sancti Dunstani, auctore Eadmero and auctore Osberno, in the Master of the Rolls' series. As to Becket, see the Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, in the same series, and especially the lists of miracles—the mere index of them in the first volume requires thirteen octavo pages. For St. Martin of Tours, see the Guizot collection of French Chronicles. For miracle and shrine cures chronicled by Bede, see his Ecclesiastical History, passim, but especially from page 110 to page 267. For similarity between the ancient custom of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... Florence:—"I have lately been lent a volume of poems composed and printed at Florence, in which another of our exheroines, Mrs. Piozzi, has a considerable share; her associates three of the English bards who assisted in the little garland which Ramsay the painter sent me. The present is a plump octavo; and if you have not sent me a copy by our nephew, I should be glad if you could get one for me: not for the merit of the verses, which are moderate enough and faint imitations of our good poets; but for a short and sensible and genteel preface ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... field (July 19, 1863) who calls himself Cyclops, and writes four octavo pages. He makes a distinction between rotation and revolution; and his doctrines and phrases are so like those of Mr. Perigal that he is a follower at least. One of his arguments has so often been used that it is worth while ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... first patient, having delivered an octavo volume of nothing, rose to go; but it seems that speaking an "infinite deal of nothing" exhausts the body, though it does not affect the mind; for the first patient sank down in his chair again. "I have excited myself ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... published at London in 1767. We shall hereafter have occasion to cull some information from it, and to revert to the fact of the separation of New Holland and New Guinea now alluded to. Callender published a work at Edinburgh, in 1766, in three vols. octavo, entitled, "Terra Australis Cognita; or Voyages to the Terra Australis, or Southern Hemisphere, &c." It bore to be an original, but is in fact a translation of what has ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... an almost superhuman energy. By the close of 1267 the work was done. The "greater work," itself in modern form a closely-printed folio, with its successive summaries and appendices in the "lesser" and the "third" works (which make a good octavo more), were produced and forwarded to the Pope ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... for among the various amusements provided for the students, a couple of octavo Novelty presses, with a sufficient supply of type and other printing material had been furnished. All the blanks for use in the ship were printed on board, and the Oceanic Enterprise, a weekly Journal, had been regularly issued during the ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... first professedly complete edition of Drummond's Poems, was Milton's elder nephew. This volume, though announced by Mr. Hall in his Introduction to the Prose Volume, did not appear till about a year afterwards, and then as an octavo of 224 pages, with this title, "Poems by that most famous Wit, William Drummond of Hawthornden ... London, Printed for Rickard Tomlins, at the Sun and Bible, neare Pye-Corner, 1656." The volume is dedicated to Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, and includes about sixty small pieces ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... 14. Five thousand crammed octavo pages Of German psychologics,—he Who his furor verborum assuages 525 Thereon, deserves just seven months' wages More than will e'er be due ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... errors in a very popular volume called 'The Design of Christianity, by Edward Fowler, minister of God's Word at Northill, in Bedfordshire. Printed by the authority of the Bishop of London, April 17th, 1671'; an octavo volume of 308 pages. The whole object proposed by Mr. Fowler was to shew, that Christianity is intended merely to restore man to the original state which he enjoyed before ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Warburton supplied an additional Preface for Volume III (or IV).[1] A second edition, consisting merely of a reprint of Volumes I-IV was brought out in 1749. In 1751 a third edition of eight volumes in duodecimo and a fourth edition of seven volumes in octavo were published simultaneously. ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... another compliment by Albert Bigelow Paine, my biographer. He is writing four octavo volumes about me, and he has been at my elbow two and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... supported by four high pillars, two of marble, and two of jaspis.[9] See the Ancient Life of St. Genevieve, written by an anonymous author, eighteen years after her death, of which the best edition is given by F. Charpentier, a Genevevan regular canon, in octavo, in 1697. It is interpolated in several editions. Bollandus has added another more modern life; see also Tillemont, t. 16, p. 621, and notes, ib. p. 802. Likewise, Gallia Christiana Nova, t. 7, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... words:—'The great era of universal equality and redistribution has dawned at last. No one book shall any longer claim more shelf than another, no book shall be taller or thicker than another. The age of folios and quartos is past, and the Age of the Universal Octavo has dawned.' ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... The story of a Little Boy's Dream—his wonderful adventures in the Clouds—written in Mr. Bangs' happiest vein, and handsomely illustrated with colored drawings by Dwiggins. Octavo. ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll

... hands. On his death, they were intrusted to the eminent civilian, Dr. French Lawrence, of Doctors' Commons, and to Dr. King, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. To these two gentlemen we are indebted for the first eight volumes of the London octavo edition of Burke's Works. The career of Dr. Lawrence was cut short by death in 1809. His associate had the exclusive charge of the papers till 1812, when the venerable widow of Burke died at Beaconsfield, and by her last will gave to Earl Fitzwilliam, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... by mail a pamphlet copy of your "Letter to the Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers, Itinerant and Local, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South," covering twenty-eight octavo pages. I thank you for a copy of your Pastoral address; and I am happy to be able to infer from its teachings that you have made a profession of religion, before taking upon yourself "Holy Orders." I suppose the time of your conversion, you date ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... may be assumed, has books on (1) four different subjects, history, science, art, and fiction, (2) each printed in four languages, English, German, French, Spanish, (3) in four different sizes of page, folio, quarto, octavo, duodecimo, (4) bound in four materials, leather, rawhide, cloth, paper. Here are four main characteristics, each in four varieties. A customer is likely to ask for Ivanhoe in English, octavo, bound in leather. Now if ...
— The Classification of Patents • United States Patent Office

... fate of his young sovereign, pays the following not inelegant, and certainly not parsimonious tribute to his memory, in a letter written a few days after his death, which, it may be noticed, he makes a day earlier than other contemporary accounts. "Octavo Calendas Octobris animam emisit ille juvenis, formosus, pulcher, elegans, animo pollens et ingesio, procerae validaeque naturae, uti flos vernus evanuit." Opus Epist., ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... a small octavo manuscript containing thirty pages of vellum measuring 6.9 by 4.7 inches, each page containing as a rule twenty-two lines. The approximate date is probably about the middle of the fifteenth century. This is arrived at partly from the character of the writing, and partly from the fact that ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... increasing until we have entire documents in Saxon. Nevertheless, it remained a prevalent habit in the case of transfer of land to have the grant written in Latin, and the boundaries and other details expressed in Anglo-Saxon. This is a large body of literature, and it fills six octavo volumes in Kemble's "Codex Diplomaticus." Being of very various degrees of genuineness—some absolute originals, some faulty copies, some too carefully amended, down to the veriest forgeries—there is here a good field for the exercise of critical ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... document, accompanied with an English translation, to the regents of the University of the State of New York. The translation was then published, in 1851, in volume IV. of O'Callaghan's Documentary History of the State of New York (pp. 21-24 of the octavo edition, pp. 15-17 of the edition in quarto). The French original was printed for the first time in 1852 in an appendix to Father Martin's translation of Bressani's Breve Relatione. In 1857, Dr. John Gilmary Shea printed ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... Octavo Edition. plain, 15s.; Quarto Edition, having the Plates of the Tesselated Pavements all coloured, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various

... "Gosson's School of Abuse, against Pipers and Players," or L3. 3s. for a clean copy of "Recreation for Ingenious Head Pieces, or a Pleasant Grove for their Wits to walk in," and grudge the like sum for a dozen handsome octavo volumes of the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... experiments in farming. Thus, among the orders in May, 1759, among a request for "Desert Glasses and Stand for Sweetmeats Jellies, etc.; 50 lbs. Spirma Citi Candles; stockings etc.," he asks for "the newest and most approved Treatise of Agriculture—besides this, send me a Small piece in Octavo—called a New System of Agriculture, or a Speedy Way to Grow Rich; Longley's Book of Gardening; Gibson upon Horses, the latest Edition in Quarto." This same invoice contains directions for "the Busts—one of Alexander the Great, another of Charles XII, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... Oddities" has the honour of informing the public, that, encouraged by the popularity of the Ballads in the first and second series of that work, he intends to communicate a succession of similar vocal crotchets, to run alone without the help of an octavo. Sally Brown, Faithless Nelly Gray, and Mary's Ghost, have been patronised by many public and private singers; but unfortunately they were adapted to as many airs—sometimes even to jigs; and the natural ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various

... England, not far from Captain Bligh's time, under the title "A Complete Body of Husbandry," undertakes to give directions for all sorts of farming processes. A Second Edition, in four octavo volumes, of which we have a copy, was published in 1758. It professes to treat of "Draining in General," and then of the draining of boggy land and of fens, but gives no intimation that any other lands ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... account of their mythology and traditional history. A Spanish translation of it by Father Francisco Ximenez was edited in Vienna, in 1857, by Dr. Carl Scherzer.[37] The Abbe Brasseur followed, in 1861, by a publication of the original text, and a new translation into French.[38] This text fills 173 octavo pages, so that it will be seen that it offers an ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton

... years from the commencement of the survey) he rendered an octavo report of four hundred and ninety-five pages, in the introduction to which he observes,—"I regret to say, I have not had the means allowed me for additional investigations, nor even for a proper use of my materials, either ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... 3. In the octavo edition of the Faithful Shepherd, Anno 1664, are inserted the following Poems of our author, viz. 1st, An Ode upon the Occasion of his Majesty's Proclamation, 1630, commanding the Gentry to reside upon ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... events in the southwest. He expressed regret that Gayarre, whom he knew and had met before the war, had not published the third volume of the History of Louisiana, which he [Scott] knew was in manuscript. I remarked that I thought I had seen the work in three octavo volumes. 'No, you have not seen three volumes. There are only two published, and the first is a small 18mo volume,' was the old gentleman's answer. I further added that it was my impression that I had seen three, when the old soldier settled the matter by saying, 'Your impressions ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... Aldus, a cursive or semi-cursive roman, the counterpart of his cursive Greek, was modeled as he himself informs us on the handwriting of Petrarch a lettra per lettra. It first appeared in the Vergil of 1501, the first of his octavo series of classics and only three months later, as was but just, in Le cose volgari of Petrarch. It had at the outset, corresponding to the Greek ligatures, many double letters and even groups of three cast on the same body, which were ...
— Catalogue of the William Loring Andrews Collection of Early Books in the Library of Yale University • Anonymous

... in Marius' chamber, remained apart near the door. He had under his arm, a package which bore considerable resemblance to an octavo volume enveloped in paper. The enveloping paper was of a greenish hue, and appeared ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... third chapter of the second book. There is not even final agreement as to how much of the original work should be included in order to make a well-rounded story. The editions, of which there are many, vary in size from seventy-five to three hundred and seventy-five octavo pages. The best arrangement is that which includes the second, fifth, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... engagements, but of people, like writers and artists, who may choose their own times to do their work—he ought to have a regular though not an invariable programme. If he is possessed of such superabundant energy as Walter Scott possessed, he may rise at five, and write ten immortal octavo pages before he appears at breakfast. But as a rule the vitality of ordinary people is more limited, and they are bound to husband it, if they mean to do anything that is worth the name; an artist then ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... very well, and finds great amusement in glove-knitting, and at present wants no other work. We quite run over with books. She has got Sir John Carr's "Travels in Spain," and I am reading a Society octavo, an "Essay on the Military Police and Institutions of the British Empire," by Capt. Pasley of the Engineers, a book which I protested against at first, but which upon trial I find delightfully written and highly entertaining. I am as much in love with the author as I ever was with ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh

... just as she had left her, and apparently just as far from coming to any conclusion. Mrs. Montgomery was resolved to let her take her way. Presently Ellen came over from the counter with a large royal octavo Bible, heavy enough to be a good lift for her. "Mamma," said she, laying it on her mother's lap, and opening it, "what do you think of ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... and his early experience, his studies, his associations, and above all the peculiar felicity of his style when treating of nautical affairs, warranted the expectation that his work would be a solid and brilliant contribution to our historical literature. It appeared in two octavo volumes in 1839, and reached a second edition in 1840, and a third in 1846.[A] The public had no reason to be disappointed; great diligence had been used in the collection of materials; every subject connected with the origin and growth of our national ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... these phrases is, that whilst everybody reads Boswell, nobody reads Johnson. The facts are otherwise. Everybody does not read Boswell, and a great many people do read Johnson. If it be asked, What do the general public know of Johnson's nine volumes octavo? I reply, Beshrew the general public! What in the name of the Bodleian has the general public got to do with literature? The general public subscribes to Mudie, and has its intellectual, like its lacteal sustenance, sent round ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... the past month, A copious and critical Latin-English Lexicon, royal octavo, pp. 1663, from the press of the Harpers, is especially deserving of praise. We congratulate Professors Andrews and Turner on the honorable close to their long and arduous labors. They have earned thanks of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... tooth and nail to the Bible, and am got through the five books of Moses, and half way in Joshua. It is really a glorious book. I sent for my bookbinder to-day, and ordered him to get me an octavo Bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town; and bind it with all the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Robert Southey, then fifty years old, published "Sir Thomas More, or Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society," a book in two octavo volumes with plates illustrating lake scenery. There were later editions of the book in 1829, and in 1831, and there was an edition in one volume in 1837, at the beginning of ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... New Receipts for Cooking, Cloth, 1 75 Mrs. Hale's New Cook Book, Cloth, 1 75 Francatelli's Celebrated French, Italian, German, and English Cook Book. The Modern Cook. With Sixty-two illustrations. Complete in six hundred large octavo pages, Cloth, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... seldom fails of dashing seriousness with impertinence, mirth with gravity, methought I made several other experiments of a more ludicrous nature, by one of which I found that an English octavo was very often heavier than a French folio; and by another, that an old Greek or Latin author weighed down a whole library of moderns. Seeing one of my Spectators lying by me, I laid it into one of the scales, and flung a twopenny piece in the other. The reader will not inquire into the event, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... eighty, closely printed, large octavo pages of this kind of testimony given by sufferers ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... commentaries as to be unfitted for general circulation, for which, indeed, it was never intended. In the present edition, the notes were of course omitted, and the inspired word, and that alone, offered to the public. It was brought out in a handsome octavo volume, and presented, upon the whole, a rather favourable specimen of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... furtherance of the above object the Executive Committee of this League be instructed to cause to be prepared and stereotyped a pamphlet, not exceeding four printed octavo pages, briefly and plainly setting forth the importance of such a movement at the present juncture—a copy of the said pamphlet to be placed in the hands of each person who may undertake to procure signatures to the above petition, and for such further ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... it is, the eight duodecimo volumes give us the events of sixteen years, from 1685 to 1701; so that the history of England from Alfred would require five hundred similar volumes. Now, Gibbon's eight octavo volumes give us the history of the world for thirteen centuries; that is to say, Gibbon has recounted the history of a century in nearly the same space that Macaulay records the history of a year. There cannot ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... home was manifested by thirty or more large volumes upon Agriculture, and several others upon Rural Architecture, while his literary and aesthetic taste was displayed by a superb edition of Macaulay, in eight octavo volumes, combining the whitest of paper and the largest and clearest type, with richest binding; Lord Derby's translation of the Iliad, Mackay's "Thousand and One Gems," a large and elegant volume of Byron's complete works, and Bryant's "Library ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... "A handsome large octavo volume, abundantly supplied with well-engraved woodcuts and lithographic plates; a sort of Encyclopaedia for ready reference.... The whole work has a look of ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various

... though, and a few months later entered college. I will not linger on the days spent with my Alma Mater; the history of the scrapes which my mischief-loving fellow students got me into during those four years, would fill three volumes of octavo. ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... Otwaysians and the Butlerites, dividing the collecting world into two rival parties, we shall not here enter into it. In all such matters it is better to go at once to the fountain head; if the reader is curious on the subject, as doubtless he must be, he is referred to one octavo and five duodecimo volumes, with fifty pamphlets which have left little to say on the point. Let it not be supposed, however, for an instant, that the writer of this article is himself undecided in his opinion on this question. By no means; and he hastens to repel the unjust suspicion, by declaring ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indagine, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favourite volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and AEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... and wrote a book. He published this book without his name, but he told them at Littlebath of his authorship; and some one also told of it at Oxford. The book—or bookling, for it consisted but of one small demy-octavo volume—was not such as delighted his friends either at Littlebath or at Oxford, or even at those two Hampshire parsonages. At Littlebath it made Miss Baker's hair stand on end, and at Oxford it gave rise to a suggestion in some orthodox ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... of another and much simpler test, but one which, by virtue of its very simplicity, could not be exposed to any elaborate and farfetched suspicions. I saw on one of the shelves in the stable a panel of cards, about the size of an octavo volume, each bearing an arabic numeral on one of its sides. I once more asked my good friend Krall, whose courtesy is inexhaustible, to leave me alone with his pupil. I then shuffled the cards and put three ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... another day, I have taken but one day. I myself have composed about forty sermons[202]. I have begun a sermon after dinner, and sent it off by the post that night. I wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting; but then I sat up all night. I have also written six sheets in a day of translation from the French[203].' BOSWELL. 'We have all observed how one man dresses himself slowly, and another fast.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir: it is wonderful how much time ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... has seen that the lives of the great Victorians lend themselves to this insidious kind of examination, because what was worst in the pretentiousness of their age is to be found enshrined in the Standard Biographies (in two volumes, post octavo) under which most of them are buried. Mr. Strachey has some criticism of these monsters which ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... notes the expression so late as in the very odd novel by T. Amory, called "John Bunde," where a young lady declares, after an alarm, "that she would never go into naked bed on board ship again." Octavo edition, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... flattered myself was something serious. This was no less than a History of the Roman Government, compiled (with the assistance of Hooke) from Livy and Dionysius: of which I wrote as much as would have made an octavo volume, extending to the epoch of the Licinian Laws. It was, in fact, an account of the struggles between the patricians and plebeians, which now engrossed all the interest in my mind which I had previously felt in the mere wars ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... more whimsical and ludicrous extent." The reviewer had probably read the work through from one paper cover to the other. It was in fact too short to bore the most blase of his kind, consisting of but forty-nine small octavo pages. The second edition, which is in the British Museum, bears the following title; "Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia; humbly dedicated and recommended to country gentlemen, and if they ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... number of them not only pitiable as efforts of human intelligence, but absolutely worthless as vocal material for melodic treatment, one wishes that all this effort had been directed to supply a real want. E. g. the two Wesleys between them wrote thirteen octavo volumes, of some 400 pages each, full of closely printed hymns. One must wish that Charles Wesley at least (who showed in a few instances how well he could do) had, instead of reeling off all this stuff, concentrated his efforts to produce only what should be worthy of his talents ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges

... interesting portion of the book must be reckoned the first section of it, which reproduces for the first time the scarce small octavo of 1645. The only reprint of the Minor Poems in the old spelling, so far as I know, is the one edited by Mitford, but that followed the edition of 1673, which is comparatively uninteresting since it could not have had Milton's oversight as it passed through the press. We know that it was ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... universal medicine, but ascertained that God is six feet six high, of flame-coloured complexion, and with particularly perfect ankles—runs him hard. And so does Rose Marius Sardat, who sent a copy of his Loi d'Union, a large and nicely printed octavo, to every Parisian newspaper-office, informing the editors that they might reprint it in feuilletons for nothing, but that he should not write the second volume unless the first were a success. Some of us ought ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... octavo, printed by Baskerville, the binding red, and fortified with silver at the edges. Out of this book it was their custom every afternoon to read the proper psalms ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... derived from reading this poem, there is room for diversity of taste; but, that it is all original and remarkable work, no person competent to pass judgment on a literary question will deny. It was first published early in the year 1803, in an octavo pamphlet of above fifty pages. Being highly applauded by the principal reviews, and eagerly purchased by the public, a new edition appeared at the end of two months, in a volume of nearly two hundred pages, illustrated with engravings. It received the praise of Gifford, the severest ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... work; and in three days after its appearance the whole edition was disposed of. When Mr. Dallas went to see Lord Byron at his house in St. James's Street, he found him loaded with letters from critics, poets, and authors, all lavish of their raptures. A handsome new edition, in octavo, was proposed, ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... lives and actions of our monarchs, and the great events of their reigns, seemed to the author to deserve little place in a history of England. The lives of Henry the Sixth and Edward the Fourth, though the author lived under both, take up but two pages in octavo, and that of Richard the Third, three. We may judge how qualified such an author was to clear up a period so obscure, or what secrets could come to his knowledge at Guy's Cliff: accordingly he retails all the vulgar ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... issue English works which the superior shrewdness of {405} Uncle Sam deems worthy of reprinting. Southey's Chronicle of the Cid, which was published by Longman in 1808, and not since printed in England, was brought out in a very handsome octavo form at Lowell, U. S., in 1846. And this, the "first American edition," as it is called on the title-page, can be readily procured from the booksellers in London; whereas the English original is not to be met ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various

... splendid figure, indeed, with posterity, if some judicious catalogue-maker, the Paterson of former times, had consolidated all these straggling Bibliothecal corps into one compact wedge-like phalanx. Or, in other words, if one thick octavo volume, containing a tolerably well classed arrangement of his library, had descended to us—oh, then we should all have been better able to appreciate the extraordinary treasures of SUCH A COLLECTION! The genius of Pearson and Crofts would have done homage to the towering ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... gratify the wanderings of an unripe taste. My indiscriminate appetite subsided by degrees in the historic line: and since philosophy has exploded all innate ideas and natural propensities, I must ascribe this choice to the assiduous perusal of the Universal History, as the octavo volumes successively appeared. This unequal work, and a treatise of Hearne, the Ductor historicus, referred and introduced me to the Greek and Roman historians, to as many at least as were accessible to an English reader. All that ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... of the Third Empire, in two volumes, crown octavo, sounds a pretty dull title, and yet anyone who takes the trouble to read these conversations will find that they are some of the most vivacious dialogues in all literature. Senior's system of recording conversations throws a curious light, by the way, upon the mechanism of the Platonic Dialogues. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... were occasional, and the most of his time was devoted to his Parliamentary duties and study. His constant companions were Homer and Dante, and he at this time, it is recorded, read the whole of St. Augustine, in twenty-two octavo volumes. He was a constant attendant upon public worship at St. James', Piccadilly, and Margaret Chapel, and a careful critic of sermons. At the same time he diligently applied himself to the work of a private member of the House ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... items entered in the accession book concerning every volume in the library are commonly the following: date of entry; accession number; class number (religion, sociology, etc.); author; title; place of publication and name of publisher; date of publication; binding (cloth, leather, etc.); size (octavo, quarto, etc.); number of pages; name of dealer from whom purchased; cost; remarks (maps, plates, etc.; books rebound; magazines, etc.; lost, worn out, ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana

... Agriculture," Shortly afterward he expressed a desire for a book "lately published, done by various hands, but chiefly collected from the papers of Mr. Hale. If this is known to be the best, pray send it, but not if any other is in high esteem." Another time he inquires for a small piece in octavo, "a new system of Agriculture, or a speedy way to ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... engraving amounted to 6000 l.—to nearly 140,000 franks of our money. It must be admitted that England is the only country in which such an undertaking could be carried into effect. Who in France would dare to risk such a sum—especially for three, volumes in octavo? He would be ruined, if he did."[2] I quote these passages simply to shew under what extraordinary obliquity of feeling those gentlemen must have set down to the task of translation and abuse—of THAT VERY WORK, which is here admitted ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... every way successful. Many old works were rescued from oblivion and ultimate destruction, and in 1795 a very wonderful Catalogue was laid before the world in print. It fills twenty-six octavo volumes of about five hundred pages to each, the works enumerated being divided into four classes,—the Confucian Canon, History, Philosophy, and General Literature. Under each work we have first of all an historical sketch of its origin, ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... long as it was in his power to supply them; and the day being not far distant, when he proposed to repair to S——, and to make a second visit to the Village in the Mountains, he prepared a case of a hundred New Testaments and a hundred octavo Bibles, which he forwarded to Lyons by the roulage accelere, or baggage wagon, to meet his arrival there; and soon after took his ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous

... a part of it is named St. Thomas, all in compliment to our Tom." At the time of his father's death in 1802, a boy of fifteen, Tom was attending the Edinburgh High School. Before me lies a coverless account book of octavo size in which are written by some careful person, in clear round-hand, recipes, scraps of poetry, problems in arithmetic and geometry, and among other things, "Tom's Expenses, 1796." A quarter at the High School costs 10/6, ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... ENGLAND from the first Invasion of the Romans, to the Accession of William and Mary, in the Year 1688. By the Rev. Dr. LINGARD. Handsomely printed in Ten large octavo Volumes, price Six Pounds, cloth lettered, and enriched with a Likeness of the Author, engraved in the best style, from a Portrait taken last ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various

... friend Mr. Pepys here comes before the world in a new dress, even more convenient than the last. The Diary is now included in four volumes demy octavo: by which change Lord Braybrooke has found room for many fresh notes and illustrations. It is now an admirably edited book; carefully and worthily presented in all ways, and truly deserving of the place which it ought to find on all ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various



Words linked to "Octavo" :   8vo, eightvo



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com