Cyril Davenport

“ There is no better leather than old calf, and it was used universally; England, France, Germany, and Italy all liked it; it was delightful to decorate, either in blind or gilt, and it mellowed with age to a rich mahogany brown. Italian and sixteenth [172] century English binders stained their fillets black, and several of these calf bindings, richly gilded, and with black fillets, are quite splendid, in perfect taste. ”

“ It is only a show back, to take the lettering and cover up the real joints, which are securely laid along the edges of the boards.
When an account book is opened it “sets up” so that it can be easily read right down to the sewing at the back. This is of great value in many cases other than the keeping of accounts, and it is the only advantage of the common, but weak, bindings with “hollow” backs. But there is no doubt that a modified form of account book binding, with a French joint, is a style which might with advantage be studied by our modern art binders. ”

“ There is little doubt that gold tooling, done as it is now, was known to the Venetians towards the end of the fifteenth century. It is a curious art, and depends for its wonderful strength upon the fact that albumen hardens with heat. The method used is simple: a stamp is impressed in blind on the leather, and then the impression is painted over with glaire of egg—albumen. When the albumen is dry it is again painted over with palm oil or cocoa-nut oil, and on this a piece of gold leaf is laid. ”

“ In these trenches the bands are laid, and the sewing is of a simpler and quicker sort than it is when the thread is brought round each band as it is in the flexible style. Moreover, there is a weak point where the thread touches the edge of the saw cut, and at this place the paper is always apt to give. It is obvious that to cut away paper from the back of a section must always be not only a barbarism but also structurally wrong. Such a method of sewing a book can only be excused on the score of cheapness, and it may be urged that in this case it does not matter. ”

“ The Chinese and Japanese have taken this particular form of evolution from the roll to the book a step further, and by help of the ancient device of “stabbing” the flattened roll along one of its sides, they produce a form called an “Orihon,” easy to consult, strong, and the blank back of the roll so hidden up that its existence is frequently not realised. But if some of the leaves of an Orihon are cut, its real structure becomes at once evident, and a book will be produced with letterpress and blank paper alternately in pairs. ”

“ Photography has revolutionised many things, it has destroyed some of the minor arts, but in book production it has had far-reaching effect, much of which is good.
It has also opened up several new industries, and now photo-lithographs, collotypes, half-tone blocks, and prints from line blocks made by the swelled gelatine or other processes, can be so wonderfully like the original, that a page of old printing made by one or other of these methods will often deceive an ordinary purchaser. ”

“ The heat of the stamp congeals the albumen under the gold, and the now gilded impression is likely enough to be the strongest part of the leather. I have often found old leather bindings badly worn away, but the gold tooled work and lettering still remaining in places. Thus, instead of being impressed, as it originally was, it is all in relief, because the albumen has soaked into the leather a little and then been hardened, so that instead of gilded hollows we find little mountains with golden tops. ”

“ If other colours are found on bindings apparently by him, I should begin by suspecting the work is that of Richard Wier. His Russia leathers are always dull brown in colour, and diced. Payne lined his backs too thickly, and his books often open stiffly. This is not of much importance when the binding is morocco, but when Russia leather is used it causes it to break at the joints. Some of the designs in the back panels of Payne’s more decorative bindings are quite admirable. His moroccos are smooth or straight-grained, a method of treating the leather that he invented. ”

“ In spite of the warnings of the Society of Arts Committee, there is no doubt that the use of “mechanical” wood pulp for paper is increasing, and this regardless of the fact that there is no lasting quality in such material, for the fibres of the wood are invariably brittle, and they also darken rapidly under the influence of light.
The dressing of such papers with resin or gelatine effects a certain improvement; gelatine particularly adds to the life of a paper and increases the elasticity of the wood fibres, but this good effect tends to die out in time. ”

“ Oriental bindings are altogether weak, and they will not stand hard wear.
Now we have, chiefly from America, machines that will do almost every one of the hand-operations for binding a book. There are sewing machines that only want to be fed with thread and the books to be sewn; there are casing machines of wonderful speed and accuracy, backing machines and binding machines. The only one thing that cannot yet be done by a machine is the pasting down the ends of the bands or tapes inside the boards. ”

“ When such a stamped sheep skin is new on a book, and finished with gold, no one would for a moment suspect its genuineness, but if in skin form, the back of the leather will at once betray it. Real morocco has a hard close grain, but the back of the imitation will show a loose soft texture. Other leathers are imitated in the same way: pig skin, lizard skin, and others ”

“ Russia leather is calf prepared with willow bark and scented with birch oil. It is a modern leather, and lasts badly, and is generally diced,—that is to say, covered all over with diagonal rulings. It was a favourite leather of Roger Payne’s. It is said that a book bound in Russia leather will last better if much used, and no doubt this is true, not only of Russia but of any other leather. As a rule leather bindings in libraries are starved; they get dry, and readily absorb animal oil from the human hand. ”

“ Seal skin is finished in the same way as morocco and looks very like it, but it is, I think, not so good. It is softer, more full of oil and has a peculiar, almost fishy, smell. The softness of seal leather makes it unfit for binding books that are likely to have much hard wear, but the oiliness is probably its worst fault, as books standing next to it are apt to be stained. But it is undoubtedly a good-looking and useful leather, and if it can be put upon the market at a less cost than morocco it is sure to have a considerable vogue. Sea-lion skin is only fit for use on big books ”

“ Vellum is particularly well suited for bindings kept in large towns, as dust does not stick to it, and it is easily cleaned. In time it assumes a creamy colour that is delightful. From the late sixteenth century until now, vellum stained green has been commonly used in England.
White vellumised leather, probably deer skin, has always been much liked in England from the time of Henry VIII., many of whose books were bound in this material: among them a copy of Elyot’s “Image of Governance,” printed in London in 1541, which is one of the first books with gold tooling upon it done in this country. ”

“ Goat leather has never been so much liked by German binders as calf or pig skin. This is partly due to the fact that German bindings are as a rule ornamented with blind tooling, and goat skin is never satisfactory when treated in this way: its grain is against it; but for gold tooling, which has been brought to its greatest perfection by Italian, French and English binders, there is nothing that gives so fine a result as goat leather. ”

“ The finest of all leathers for binding is goat skin, morocco as we now call it, from the reputed land of its origin. “Levant morocco” is still the name of the finest skins. Goats, however, have of course been common enough all over the world for ages, and so we find very ancient bindings in goat skin, quite possibly the most ancient, although I rather incline to vellum in this connection. ”

“ By sticking successive strips of papyrus to each other ancient scribes produced long rolls of manuscript, and from these rolls we derive many of the book terms which are still in use. The most obvious is “volume,” which is from “volvere,” “to roll up”; and “Bible” comes from the Greek “βυβλοἱ,” meaning the inner bark of papyrus.
In China the possibility of making thin feltings with silk fibre was probably known at a very remote period, and [63] it is likely enough that from some such unsatisfactory production the better and usable kinds made of vegetable fibres evolved itself. ”

“ Modern French work is astonishing for its technical skill. The work of Capé, Duru, Thouvenin, Bauzonnet, Trautz, Lortic, Niedrée, Marius-Michel, Chambolle, and many others is admirable from all workmanlike points of view.
But there is no genius in any of it; a great French binder of this century is yet to come.
Spanish bindings are often very handsomely gold tooled, and are usually ornamented with heraldic designs. Little is known at present about them, but it is certainly doubtful whether any great school of gold tooling in bindings has ever existed outside Italy, England or France. ”

“ So on fine [143] mediæval books and also on later books, following the earlier manner in their own way, we find all sorts of designs on book edges. It is not a subject which has attracted much attention as yet, but it probably will in time, and there is already enough known about it to show that much valuable knowledge is lying hidden up in it. For instance, if a book, otherwise likely, has the words “Rex in Æternum Vive” painted in gold on the edges, it is a positive sign that it issued from the workshop of Thomas Berthelet, printer and binder to Henry VIII. ”

“ Art forgeries are now so common and so excellent that there are really very few things that cannot be copied so exactly that it is difficult to distinguish between the original and the copy, but the Saint Porchaire ware is so far one of the very few things that completely baffle the cleverest artist, and this is largely due to the curious use of the binders’ stamps. ”

“ Line engraving on a small scale plays an important part in book illustration. It is the simplest, and yet requires the most technical skill of all the methods of marking metal surfaces for the purpose of making prints. The engraver cuts out a thread of metal, producing a little track on the surface, and to do this properly requires the utmost skill. ”

“ A bad etching can be made to look like a good one; a good etching can be made to look weak and wretched. In fact, a clever artist printer can produce a capital picture from a plate which has nothing at all on it but the ink. ”

“ It is easier to cut a square form of letter on stone than a cursive form, so we find that the majority of rock or stone inscriptions favour the square form rather than the rounded form of letter. We derive our angular forms of letters from the distant past, but the rounded forms are adapted from the later times of papyrus or vellum, when reed or pen writing was understood.
Writings on metal have been made from time to time, but never very largely. In India inscribed plaques of bronze, kept together by metal rings, have been often used. ”

“ A quarto is generally squarish in outline, nearly as broad as it is long; an octavo is an elongated rectangle, its breadth considerably less than its length. A duodecimo is always much longer than its breadth.
As curiosities, books have been made in many forms, circular, heart-shaped, octagonal, flower or animal forms, but they are of small importance, and have been chiefly made as Christmas cards, valentines, and such ephemeral publications.
The rules as to quiring of books printed on paper do not apply to books printed on vellum. ”

“ It is impossible to say much in favour of modern roan, the trade name for sheep skin, which has suffered badly at the hands of the tanner and the dyer; also probably the binders have not been without fault, as in order to get the leather flexible for joints and bands they have acquired a pernicious habit of paring it too thin, and another, equally hurtful, of unduly pulling and stretching it so that the fibres, or what is left of them, get strained and broken. ”

“ Block books, Japanese wood blocks, and all very early wood cuts, were cut by a knife, and such outline work, not too small, is easier to execute with a properly shaped knife than with anything else. But as soon as wood cutters began to be more skilled, and compared their work with line engraving, they found that a knife was not so useful as an engraver’s burin, and so wood engraving, as distinct from cutting, came into being. The cuts in the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493 show some sort of a transitional stage ”

“ There are, of course, several other leathers in which books have been bound as curiosities, and these are generally noted in some way; a book in the British Museum is lettered outside “Kangaroo,” and manuscript notes are in others telling us in what strange materials they are covered. Fish skin, known as shagreen, has sometimes been used for bindings; it is very strong but inelastic, and soon goes at the joints. In the seventeenth century it was largely imitated in calf, stamped with a grain.
Perhaps the most curious leather in which any book can [180] be bound is human skin. ”

“ A horn book is, unfortunately, easy to copy, and it is sometimes a [166] very difficult thing to say positively whether a given specimen is genuinely old or not. Modern frauds are often wrong in either the printing, the paper, the horn, or the nails, but they are often right as to the wood, which is easily made to have every proper appearance of age by means of soaking in water, rubbing with sand, staining by ammonia, and so on. ”