What Is a Cancel? — Understanding Cancels and Cancellanda in Book Collecting
A cancel is a replacement leaf — a new leaf printed and inserted into a book to take the place of an original leaf that the publisher wished to suppress or correct. The original leaf that was removed is called the cancellandum (plural: cancellanda). The replacement leaf is the cancellans (plural: cancellantia). Together, the pair illustrates a moment of editorial intervention in the book’s production.
Why Publishers Cancel Leaves
Error Correction
The most common reason for cancels is to correct errors discovered after printing but before (or during) binding. If a typographical error, factual mistake, or legally problematic passage is discovered while sheets are being gathered for binding, the publisher can print a corrected leaf and have it tipped in (pasted onto the stub of the removed leaf) during the binding process.
Legal Concerns
A passage that might expose the publisher to libel, copyright infringement, or other legal liability may be cancelled and replaced with a revised version. Some of the most famous cancels in literary history were made for legal reasons.
Author Revisions
An author who makes last-minute changes after the text has been printed may request cancels. This was more common in the hand-press period when authors sometimes did not see final proofs.
Dedication Changes
A change in the book’s dedicatee — due to a falling-out between author and honoree, or a death before publication — could prompt a cancel of the dedication leaf.
How to Identify a Cancel
Identifying cancels requires careful physical examination of the book’s structure:
The Stub
When a leaf is cut out and a new leaf pasted in, the new leaf is typically attached to the remaining stub of the original leaf. This stub — a narrow strip of paper remaining from the inner margin of the removed leaf — is visible in the gutter. A cancel will show:
- A slightly thicker area in the gutter where the new leaf is pasted to the stub.
- Possible misalignment between the cancel leaf and adjacent leaves.
- Sometimes visible adhesive along the inner edge of the cancel leaf.
Paper Differences
The cancel leaf may be printed on paper that differs slightly from the rest of the book — a different shade, weight, or texture. If the cancel was printed separately (perhaps days or weeks later), the paper stock may not match perfectly.
Type Differences
If the cancel corrects a textual error, the type on the cancel leaf may differ from the type on surrounding leaves — a different typesetting, different spacing, or different line breaks, even if the content is the same.
Conjugacy
In a traditionally printed book, leaves are printed in conjugate pairs — each leaf is physically connected to another leaf within the same gathering. A cancel disrupts this conjugacy: the cancel leaf is not conjugate with any other leaf. By examining the book’s structure, a bibliographer can determine whether a leaf is part of its original gathering or has been inserted.
Famous Cancels
The Great Gatsby (1925)
The first printing of The Great Gatsby contains the misprint “sick in tired” (for “sick and tired”) on page 205. This error was not corrected by a cancel but was left in place throughout the first printing, making it a key identification point. However, Fitzgerald requested numerous other corrections that were implemented in the second printing through resetting the type — not through individual leaf cancellation.
Moby-Dick (1851)
The American first edition of Moby-Dick has a complex bibliographic history involving cancels. The British edition (The Whale) was published first, and certain changes between the British and American editions involved cancelled and revised material.
John Cleland’s Fanny Hill (1748–1749)
Various editions of Fanny Hill contain cancels where publishers attempted to moderate the most explicit passages in response to legal pressure, then sometimes restored the original text in later printings.
Cancels and Collector Value
Pre-Cancel Copies (Cancellanda Present)
Copies that retain the original, uncancelled leaf are bibliographically significant because they preserve the text as it was first printed. These copies are described as having the cancellandum present (or “before cancel”) and are generally more valuable than cancelled copies because:
- They are rarer (most copies were caught and corrected).
- They represent the earliest state of the text.
- They document the publisher’s editorial process.
Cancelled Copies (Cancellans Present)
Copies with the cancel in place represent the publisher’s intended final version. While generally less rare than pre-cancel copies, they are still first-edition copies and are valued as such.
Incomplete Cancellation
Sometimes the cancellation process was not completed — some copies were bound with the original leaf, others with the cancel, and occasionally both the original and the replacement leaf are present in the same copy. Copies that retain both the cancellandum and the cancellans are bibliographically interesting but rare.
Cancels in Modern Publishing
Modern offset printing and digital typesetting have made cancels largely unnecessary. Errors can be corrected between printings without the physical intervention that cancels require. However, the concept persists in related forms:
Errata slips — printed corrections tipped into bound copies — serve a similar function to cancels without requiring leaf removal.
Revised printings — the entire text is corrected for subsequent printings, replacing the cancel-by-leaf approach with wholesale correction.
Sticker corrections — occasionally, a sticker with corrected text is placed over an error. This is the modern economy version of a cancel and is generally considered a defect rather than a bibliographic feature.
For the Collector
Understanding cancels is part of understanding the bibliographic history of a book. When examining a potentially valuable copy:
- Check the bibliography for that book to see if cancels are documented.
- Examine the gutter of any leaf identified as a potential cancel — look for stubs, adhesive, or misalignment.
- Compare the text of the cancel leaf against the known cancellandum text (if documented) to confirm which state you have.
- Note the cancel status in any description or listing of the book.