Category: bookbinding

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Sewing in the Round

One of the advantages of the Nokey sewing frame is that it is easy to loosen, then retighten the supports to sew a book in the round.  Sewing in the round is less invasive than flattening the original backing, then rebacking, and incidenally is quicker. However, thick books such as the one pictured take me a while to sew: I am no where near as quick as an experienced sewer in the mid-nineteenth century who could sew between two and three thousand signatures a day, according to “A Day at the Bookbinder’s” from The Penny Magazine Supplement Vol. XI, December 24, 1842, p. 380.

Three sizes of the Nokey are available here for purchase.

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Upcoming Lecture at Rare Book School, University of Virginia

Reconstructing Diderot: Eighteenth Century French Bookbinding

Monday, June 4, 5:30

 Auditorium of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library

Rare Book School

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

This is an image driven (150+), fast-paced, terse overview of the research I have been doing on eighteenth century French bookbinding. The extensive documentation concerning eighteenth century French bookbinding, as found in Diderot, Dudin, and other sources, form a unique starting point in the examination of the larger questions associated with the history of craft and material culture, the transmission of textual information, and, of course, the history of bookbinding. Book structures of the late eighteenth century stand at the cusp of one of the most radical transformations since the invention of the multi-section codex: by the mid nineteenth century, the machine made cloth case binding begins to dominate book structures. In this talk, I will illustrate the historical context of how these books were made and compare this with physical evidence of books from this time. Particular attention will be given to the tools and techniques used to produce these bindings.

This lecture is free and open to the public.

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Wood of London

Fig. 1: Thomas E. Harrison. The Bookbinding Craft and Industry, 2nd. ed. (London: Sir I. Pitman & Sons, Ltd, nd [1930’s]) PML 195761. Bound by Wood of London, possibly by Harrison, since he worked there around this time. Photo Credit: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

Although I tend to be primarily interested in the structural aspects of utilitarian or vernacular bookbindings, I have to confess an almost secret admiration for the craft skills and occasionally the design of highly decorated bindings. The firm Henry T. Wood of London, est. 1875, though not as well known as Sangorski & Sutcliffe or Zaehnsdorf, executed a number of specular bindings. In the twentieth century, Thomas Harrison and W. Topping were partners in the firm.  Harrison’s text is an important record of early 20th century machine bookbinding; useful in the way it pairs the hand actions with machine counterparts. It is also an important document of early 20th century English machine binding practice, though not as comprehensive as Pleger’s 1914 Bookbinding and its Auxiliary Branches, which concentrates on American machine binding. Parts of Pleger are on (in?) the internet archive.

In 1950 Harrison also wrote a series of four articles in Paper and Print which were reprinted as Fragments of Bookbinding Technique: the articles concern a stiff-board vellum binding, his “reverse-guard” for binding single sections, a fire resistant pull-off box, and a Solander box. As a demonstration of the fire resistant nature of the pull-off box (when properly constructed), Zaehnsdorf  once threw one into a fire, where it burned for four hours.  The book, valued at 400 pounds, was unharmed.  The Solander boxes were not only dust proof, but waterproof: when the Thames flooded the Tate Gallery in 1928, a number of boxes floated for “a considerable amount of time.” [1] Harrison was an original thinker, a rarity in bookbinding literature.

The binding above is quite possibly my all time favorite pictorial binding. An advertisement for Wood in the beginning of the first edition of this book gives their business slogan is “Sound Technique/ Superb Finish/ Distinctive Design.” [2] All true for this binding. Even the turn-ins are tooled with sewing keys in the corners, hiding the head, tail and fore-edge mitered joins.  The center of the binding features a pallet symmetrically flanked by two fillets, above the three backing hammers, on an upside down knocking down iron.  Some of the tools depicted are non-traditional, however: the wooden rulers, the carpenter’s try-squares and the protractor and not commonly considered bookbinding tools. Was this designed by a non-bookbinder?  Is it evidence of Harrison’s free thinking appropriation of tools from outside of the craft?

 Fig. 2:  James Edward Frank Willis, The Next Volume… (London, 1933) Observe the subtle asymmetry of the design. Bound by Wood of London. British Library Database of Bookbindings.

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Fig. 3: Detail. Note the laurel leaf flanked fist and bee like alien creatures flying up into a highly stylized sun. Technically, this is known as awesome.  British Library Database of Bookbindings.

Wood of London apparently executed more progressive designs than other major firms from this time. This binding is an especially great combination of traditional techniques and innovative, slightly odd, perhaps even subversive designs.  It is also interesting because it came out of a trade background, rather than the art or craft school background, like most later twentieth century designer bookbinders. How would the above design be described? Baroque sci-fi? Proto-steampunk? Twentieth century Rococo?

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[1] T. Harrison. “The Solander Book-Box Portfolio and Its Affinities” in Fragments of Bookbinding Technique (np, nd), 27.

[2] Thomas E. Harrison. The Bookbinding Craft and Industry, (London: Sir I. Pitman & Sons, Ltd, 1926, Preliminary Advertisements) Facsimile in the series The History of Bookbinding Technique and Design, ed. Sidney F. Huttner (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1989).