The Origin and Development of the Quotation Mark,

The Origin and Development of the Quotation Mark, by Philippe Theophanidis.

http://aphelis.net/origin-development-quotation-mark/

“The earliest book discovered in which appeared indicia which may properly be termed marks of quotation was printed in 1516 at Strasbourg, Alsace (then in Germany), by Mathias Schurer. It was “De Vitis Sophistarum” by Flavius Philostratus. The marks consisted of two commas in the left hand margin of each page outside the regular type measure. They were placed at the beginning of each line in which a quoted passage appeared, and were evidently added after the page was set up, because their alignment varies greatly.”

Fortunately for anyone interested in those matters, Prof Ruth Finnegan’s book was published under a Creative Common license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). One can read it online for free or download a complete PDF copy for a small fee (about $8 USD).

Stephen