Octavo in the context of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas"

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⭐ Core Definition: Octavo

Octavo, a Latin word meaning "in eighth" or "for the eighth time", (abbreviated 8vo, , or In-8) is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multiple pages of text were printed to form the individual sections (or gatherings) of a book. An octavo is a book or pamphlet made up of one or more full sheets (e.g. of A2 paper) on which 16 pages of text were printed, which were then folded three times to produce eight leaves. Each leaf of an octavo book thus represents one eighth the size of the original sheet. Other common book formats are folios and quartos. Octavo is also used as a general description of the size of books that are about 8 to 10 inches (200 to 250 millimetres) tall (almost A4 paper size), and as such does not necessarily indicate the actual printing format of the books, which may even be unknown as is the case for many modern books. These terms are discussed in greater detail in book sizes.

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👉 Octavo in the context of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (French: Vingt Mille Lieues sous Les Mers) is a science fiction adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne. It is considered a classic within its genres and world literature. It was originally serialised from March 1869 to June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's French fortnightly periodical, the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation. A deluxe octavo edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou.

It was widely acclaimed on its release, and remains so; it is regarded as one of the premier adventure novels and one of Verne's greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Michael Strogoff. Its depiction of Captain Nemo's submarine, Nautilus, is regarded as ahead of its time, as it accurately describes many features of modern submarines, which in the 1860s were comparatively primitive vessels. Verne was inspired by a model of the French submarine Plongeur, which he saw at the Exposition Universelle in 1867.

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Octavo in the context of Guillaume Rouillé

Guillaume Rouillé (French pronunciation: [ɡijom ʁuje]; Latin: Gulielmus Rovillius; c. 1504 – 1589), also called Roville or Rovillius, was one of the most prominent humanist bookseller-printers in 16th-century Lyon. He invented the pocket book format called the sextodecimo, printed with sixteen leaves to the folio sheet, half the size of the octavo format, and published many works of history and poetry as well as medicine, in addition to his useful compilations and handbooks.

Rouillé was born in Tours. Though he was a Frenchman, he served his apprenticeship in the Venetian printing-house of Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari, and retained his connections with Venice as a source of texts after his arrival in Lyon around 1543.

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Octavo in the context of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, sometimes shortened to Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon. The six volumes cover, from 98 to 1590, the peak of the Roman Empire, the history of early Christianity and its emergence as the Roman state religion, the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the rise of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane and the fall of Byzantium, as well as discussions on the ruins of Ancient Rome.

Volume I was first published in February 1776 by William Strahan and Thomas Cadell. It was reissued in a succession of six revised editions between 1776 and 1789. Volumes II and III appeared in 1781, and the final three volumes (IV–VI) were issued together in 1788. All six volumes of the first edition were published in quarto; later octavo reprints followed from 1783 onward.

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Octavo in the context of Sextodecimo

The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from folio (the largest), to quarto (smaller) and octavo (still smaller). Historically, these terms referred to the format of the book, a technical term used by printers and bibliographers to indicate the size of a leaf in terms of the size of the original sheet. For example, a quarto (from Latin quartō, ablative form of quartus, fourth) historically was a book printed on sheets of paper folded in half twice, with the first fold at right angles to the second, to produce 4 leaves (or 8 pages), each leaf one fourth the size of the original sheet printed – note that a leaf refers to the single piece of paper, whereas a page is one side of a leaf. Because the actual format of many modern books cannot be determined from examination of the books, bibliographers may not use these terms in scholarly descriptions.

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