The inside of a book’s cover can contain evidence easily missed when a digital viewer opens directly at the title page. Ownership marks and labels may be attached to a pastedown, the endpaper adhered to the board or cover.
The University of Liverpool’s introduction to pastedowns explains the term and illustrates inscriptions, labels, and earlier library locations. These features concern an individual copy, not automatically every copy of the same work.
Give each layer its own entry
In an available digital image, distinguish printed text, handwriting, a pasted label, and the underlying paper. Note their positions without assuming they were added at the same time.
For an imagined example, a bookseller’s label at the lower edge and an ownership signature near the top could belong to different episodes. Their shared location does not establish their sequence.
Check whether the catalogue discusses rebinding before treating the pastedown as original to the book’s first construction. The relationship between cover, paper, and text block may have changed.
Never peel a label or lift adhered paper to investigate. A careful description of what the supplied images show is enough for a reading note. Link the library’s record so another reader can return to the same copy and assess the evidence.
Editorial illustration from this site’s image library; not documentary evidence of the example or object discussed.