Elzevir, the name of a celebrated family of printers at Amsterdam, Leyden, and other places in Holland, whose beautiful editions were chiefly published between the years 1592 and 1681. During this period, covering scarcely a century, M. Willems has catalogued no fewer than 1600 works, all such as were doubtful having been rigorously excluded. The difficulty of determining what are genuine Elzevirs depends partly on there having been a good number of printers who bore the name, and on their having had three or four principal places of business. But above all, they were booksellers as well as printers, hence many works were attributed to them which were hardly published, and certainly not printed, by them; while imitations were constantly being made, and they themselves issued many books under pseudonyms, or other printers' or publishers' names. Louis, the first to make the name famous, is said to have been born at Louvain about the year 1540, and, driven by the religious commotions of the time, to have settled as a bookbinder and bookseller in Leyden, where he died about 1617. The first work issued by him bears the title Drusii Ebraicorum Questionum ac Responsorum Libri Duo, and the date 1583. The first work, however, really published by him at his own risk, was a Eutropius by P. Merula (1592). From this time till his death he published over a hundred books, his typographical mark (first used in 1595) being the arms of the United Provinces—an eagle on a column, holding in its talons a sheaf of seven arrows, with the inscription Concordia res parve crescent.
Five out of Louis's seven sons continued to carry on their father's business. Their names were Matthias, Louis, Ægidius (Giles), Jodocus (Joost), and Bonaventura. The last, in conjunction with his nephew Abraham Elzevir (a son of Matthias), prepared the smaller editions of the Latin classics, in 12mo and 16mo, which are still valued for their beauty and correctness. Among the finest examples of these are the Livy, Tacitus, Pliny, and Cæsar (1634-36). Equally celebrated were their 24mo editions of French historical and political authors under the name of the Petites Républiques, and their 12mo French and Italian classics. The handiness and cheapness of these duodecimos, of which a volume of no less than 500 pages was sold for but one florin, found approbation from all but a few pedants who believed there could be no scholarship save in folios. The printing was long supervised by Abraham, while Bonaventura managed the publication and sale; the learned David Heinsius wrote the Latin introductions and dedications to many of the books. In 1625 they acquired the printing business established at Leyden by Isaac, the second son of Matthias, who had become printer to the university there. His typographical mark was an elm surrounded by a vine-branch bearing clusters of fruit, below which stands a solitary figure, with the motto Non solus. M. Willems has proved that the Elzevir type designs were due to Cornelius van Dyck. The two heads of the house died near each other in 1652, and their successors were Joannes Elzevir, Abraham's son, and Daniel, Bonaventura's son, who nobly maintained the traditions of the press. Their finest works were an Imitatio without date, and a psalter of 1653. In 1654 Daniel settled at Amsterdam, where he united with Louis, eldest son of Joost, who had already settled there in 1638, and distinguished himself by his editions of the works of Cartesius. The masterpieces of the new partnership were the Corpus Juris in folio (1663) and the French Bible (1669). Their typographical mark was a Minerva with the ægis, an owl, and olive-branch, and the motto Ne extra oleas. The last representatives of the house were Peter, grandson of Joost, who flourished at Utrecht from 1670 to 1672, and Abraham, son of the first Abraham, who was university printer at Leyden from 1681 to 1712. The Elzevirs were clever men of business, and were none too liberal to many of the scholars on whose labours they rose to wealth. So valuable are some productions of Elzevir's press, by reason of rarity or otherwise, that an unimportant cookery-book called the Pastissier sold in 1877 for 3250 francs. See Pieter, Annales de l'Imprimerie Elzévirienne (Leip. 1852); Willems, Les Elzevir (Brussels, 1880); Andrew Lang, Books and Bookmen (1886); and Goldsmid's Complete Catalogue (Edin. 1888).