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Language Variants
Seitennummer; Número de Página; Sivunumero, Paginanummer.
Usage Notes
In contrast to the myth that Victorian writers were paid by the word, it was much more usual for newspapers to request an article of a certain number of pages. The size of a newspaper issue in the nineteenth century varied substantially depending on the publication genre, format, periodicity, edition, and audience. In 1859 the Glasgow Herald, for example, had eight pages Monday and Friday, and four pages Tuesday to Thursday. Added to this, the newspapers expanded as improvements in technology reduced the price of paper. The decision was not always a straightforward expansion: the Sheffield Weekly Telegraph switched to a smaller paper size in 1887 but doubled the number of pages. In Australia, early newspapers mostly consisted of four pages. In Delpher, page numbers are generated semi-automatically and checked by an operator.
Examples:
Masthead of The Fitzroy City Press including page count, 7 February 1890: 1. Trove.
Folio, showing page number, of the Evening News, 24 July 1885: 3. Trove.
“pages have to be read sequentially (or, the skipping of pages has to be done in sequence); the entire contents of an article, or of a page, has to be read, for the user to avoid missing relevant information; copies of an article, a photograph, or of a page have to be paid for.” [Edmund King, 167]
“During that time period, at least, the paper was published in eight-page editions with each page containing four columns.” [Simons, 389]
“Graphic was published on Saturdays, and ‘Place aux Dames’ appeared every week, typically in the middle of the newspaper and on one page; often, her paragraphs make up the top and bottom third, with illustrations of some recent event, sometimes a sporting event, comprising the middle third; sometimes her paragraphs take up the left two-thirds of the page, with unrelated illustrations on the right.” [Cogdill, 182-83]
“The situation is even more complex, since—as Sue’s very long note at the end of his feuilleton shows––if the top of the page fictionalizes, the bottom of the page defictionalizes by means of extra-narrative digressions, by the insertion of press articles within the feuilleton, and by the inscription of the novel’s episodes in current public debates.” [Thérenty, 38]
“… he quickly learned that what the city editor really wanted was not merely accuracy but some quality that would make both the newspaper’s pages and life itself appear to be more colorful and interesting than was indicated by the bare facts.” [Kwiat, 102]
“On the following page there is an outline of the series of decrees, British and French, which led up to the American embargo on trade with Britain in 1811.” [Rosengarten, 592]
“In the absence of anything like a working text, or even a rudimentary bibliography, it is essential to return to the original pages of the paper.” [Garside, 505]