Abstract: At present, many libraries have a vast and precious collection of western old books; some even
hold incunabula extremely rare in China. However, these western collections which are of great importance
to reveal the exchange history between Chinese and Western cultures have not been catalogued or scholarly
edited; therefore, we need to learn and study these old books, thus laying a good foundation for the cataloging
and editing of them. To learn the appearance and bibliographic knowledge of these books is key to deeper
understanding, cataloging, editing and then development and use of them. This paper deals with the binding,
plates, paper, title-page, initials, and catchwords of western books to demonstrate the bibliographic features
of incunabula and post-incunabula of hand-press period and industrial books, which is essential to dating
western old books, evaluating their historical and aesthetic value and scholarly editing them.

Key words: Western old books, Incunabula, Binding, Plates, Paper, Hand-press