C19 Bookbinding Session

From the UW binding collection

4.27.17

• c18 paper wrappers - 1734 French Recuil de Pouesies Prouvencalos (Berte, 1734)
  • glued to spine
  • cover is short - too small for text block
  • quires sown so as to be easily removed - utilitarian
  • these especially common in France
• Appel au Tribunal de l'Opinion Publique, Mounier (1790, Geneva)
  • trimmed deckle edges: decided to be "final" binding
  • des bib useful for understanding how it came off the press
  • color of paper from rag content - not dyed (bluish grey, lighter grey)
• Marbling
  • marbling tray
  • allum makes color stick
  • version of watercolor, which is floated on size: you have 2-3 min to be able to manipulate color
  • size: caraginan moss infused water - sticky
  • lay paper on size without air bubbles
  • wash off: allum makes color stick
  • editions difficult
  • Richard Wolf - marbling
• Paste paper: Herodian, Herodians lebens-leshchreibung de romischen kaiser (1784)
  • waste paper pressed and dried
  • colored with whatever you have around
  • decorative paper any bookbinder could do
  • Mostly German
• Transitions: spine labeling on paper bindings
  • Blank -> handwritten (all unique) -> printed: a way to date binding
• Recuil historique sur des Etats Gener - Paste paper with leather spine (1787)
  • handle lettering: one off usually (vs. edition)
  • very hard to do gilt tooling well: have to do in blind first
  • Paul Bonet - bookbinder - whoever did his gilt tooling was the best
• 1820s British printed paper bindings
  • glue starting to come in as a way of holding gatherings together
    • gutta-percha
• Watman - wove paper (to "improve" on chainlines)
• printed label on paper-on-board binding
• printed cloth on press board
  • Harper's Family Library - good for collecting (inexpensive)
  • spotting on paper = foxing
  • leather spines are a clue that it's in its final, intended binding
• Next: bookcloth

5.3.17

• Period vs. rebound
  • American C18: calf, medium-brown, cracked at spine is the identification key (Freneau's Poems)
  • Example of acid in leather leeching out into pastedowns, title page, endsheets
    • if there's a mismatch in acid on paper, can tell if the binding is not original (1802 The Coquette)
  • Poor paper quality in C18 paper
  • Tree-calf - painted or acid-etched
• Rebound
  • grained: calf trying to look like goat-skin (little pebbles)
    • rolled through a machine to give it the textured look, like a pasta-maker
    • goatskin doesn't flake off, you can tell when the calf starts flaking away at the spine the way calf breaks down
  • fad for making binders look fancy - calf looks nice but is more brittle
  • stuck on headbands (early) - printed cloth
• Goat-grained bookcloth (after 1820-30) (Yale Commencement Poem, Joel Barlow)
  • When the nubbins wear off on top of the grain it looks different than leather
• Printed paper (turn of C19)
• Dutch gilt (guild?) paper binding
  • used in children's books frequently
• 1820s calf with tooled in gilt pasted-down decorative spine - Selections of a Father for the Use of his Children
  • earliest children's book by a Jewish person
  • marbling: if the paper is shiny it's from the 1880s-90s ("calendaring"), this one is more likely to be 1820s
• Paper bound tract (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) (1823)
• trimming textblock - the more you take off, the more you can sell back to the papermaker