The Non Solus emblem was one of several printers' marks used by the ELZEVIR, or ELZEVIER, family.  Between 1583 and 1712 there were at least fourteen members of this family who were booksellers and/or publishers and/or printers, and for about 60 years - from 1622 to 1680 - they were one of the best known and most influential names in European publishing.  The ELZEVIR concern was not one, but a collection of small, autonomous  family partnerships.  The most successful were the partnership of Bonaventura and Abraham ELZEVIR (uncle and nephew) in Leiden, which took over the printing presses of Abraham's brother Isaac;  and the Amsterdam concern of Bonaventura's son Daniel.

The first of the ELZEVIRs, Lodewijk or Louis ELZEVIR, was the son of a printer in Louvain who arrived in Leiden by way of Antwerp, Liege, and Douai in about 1580, when he was about 33 years old. According to Hartz the name "ELZEVIR" may possibly have derived either from  "Helsche Vier" (Hell's Fire) or from "St Elmusvuur".  Louis had learned the craft of bookbinding at the printing works of the French bookbinder Christoffer PLANTIN who had himself settled in Antwerp, and it was evidently PLANTIN who lent Louis the money to establish himself as a bookseller in a building on the Rapenburg, next to Leiden University, where he built up a business selling learned works, mainly in Latin, for the University trade.  From there, Louis went on to obtain a position as University beadle and to publish some of the works he sold as well as acting as an agent for others.  Louis' business did not always flourish: in 1586 he was forced to sell his home and his house on the Rapenburg in order to repay his debt; but he successfully petitioned the University for the right to build a shop inside the University gate.

After Louis' death the Leiden firm continued under his eldest son Mathijs and his sixth son Bonaventura.  Another son Gilles was also involved in the business.  In 1622 Mathijs sold his interest to his eldest son Abraham.  The ELZEVIR concern flourished during the thirty-year partnership of Abraham and Bonaventura and from 1926 onwards was strengthened further when another son of Mathijs, Isaac, turned over to them his printing works. Isaac had established a printing works in Leiden probably in about 1616 from where he printed books for the bookselling members of the family and their contemporaries.  In 1620 he was appointed University printer, and in 1625 he purchased the oriental press which had been built up with diverse fonts - among them Syriac, Chaldaic, Arabic, and Hebrew - by Thomas ERPENIUS, but shortly after that, he left Leiden to set himself up as a tavern keeper in Rotterdam.

Other members of the family meanwhile established businesses in The Hague and in Utrecht.

Louis' second son, Louis II, opened a shop in The Hague in about 1590,  helped for a while by his brother Gilles, and in 1594 he rented two stalls in the Great Hall in the Binnenhof.  On his death in 1620 it was inherited by his younger brother Bonaventura who assigned it to his nephew Jacob.  In about 1638 Jacob transferred the shop to his brother Abraham who was by that time overseeing the printing and bookselling concern in Leiden.  It was inherited by his son Johannes who had worked with the Parisian printer William PELE and then studied philosophy at Leiden and who ran it from 1652 to 1665 when it passed into other hands.

Louis' fourth son, Joost, set up a book business "at the sign of the Red Goose" in Utrecht and was elected as one of the deacons of the printers, binders and booksellers guild.  Joost's son Pieter does not appear to have continued the business, although his grandson Pieter II later set up a small bookselling concern.

After thirty years, Abraham and Bonaventure passed on their business to their sons - Abraham's son Johannes;  and Bonaventure's son Daniel who had worked with the bookseller Pierre LE PETIT in Paris. On the death of Johannes in 1661 the Leiden activities continued for a while under the guidance of his widow Eva VAN ALPHEN and later passed to his son Abraham II.

In 1638 Louis III, son of Joost, had established a branch on the Damrak in Amsterdam, and in 1655 he was joined by his cousin Daniel. The expansion of Dutch trade following the Dutch Revolt had established Amsterdam as a prosperous city and the Amsterdam branch soon became the family's main concern, flourishing due to Daniel's influence, his growing European sales network, and his contacts with distinguished scholars.  His presence, though, was crucial to the firm's success, and the Amsterdam branch continued for only a few months after Daniel died from a fever in 1680.

The Leiden branch had meanwhile been going through a disastrous period. Abraham II, a distinguished lawyer, turned out to be a negligent businessman, and the firm's reputation quickly declined. On his death the presses were sold and the firm lost its monopoly on printing the University theses.  In October 1712 the University appointed Jan POEREEP as printer.

For nearly 160 years the ELZEVIR name disappeared from the European publishing scene until it was revived in 1880 by Jacobus George ROBBERS and others who established the firm N.V. Uitgeversmaatschappij Elsevier in Rotterdam, which was to grow into the present-day global Elsevier concern.  It was under  ROBBERS that the firm also revived one of the ELZEVIR printers' marks - the Non Solus - although this version illustrated here (from the Wonderreizen by Jules VERNE) has been considerably re-invented.  In its early years the firm experienced similar ups and downs to its 17th century namesakes, and when the former journalist and writer Ted KLAUTZ was recruited in 1929 it was badly overdrawn at the bank. KLAUTZ succeeded J.G. ROBBERS' son Herman ROBBERS as head of the firm and put it back on a sound footing.  Today the Non Solus mark used by Elsevier closely resembles that of the early ELZEVIRS - see:  http://nonsolus.com.

Sources
This overview has been compiled from modern sources. Especially helpful are:
DAVIES, David W., The World of the Elseviers, Nijhoff, The Hague, The Netherlands, 1954
HARTZ, S.L., The Elseviers and their Contemporaries, Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1955
KLAUTZ, J.P., In de Ban van mijn Schaduw, Huizen, 1990

Next page
Previous page