EDITION BINDING[6]

Of late years, with that revival of craftsmanship, according to the gospel of Ruskin and William Morris, already dwelt upon, there has been a rush into all the departments of manual dexterity needing for successful achievement the guidance of artistic feeling. The result of this has been that there is a tendency to exaggerate the importance of the ornamental and the decorated, to the exclusion of not only simplicity but, let us say frankly, of plainness and the undecorated surface of flawless material. The over-elaboration of the decorative arts must inevitably produce a reaction sooner or later, very quickly for those who prefer restraint, more slowly for the majority of the public,to whom ornament is always synonymous with art. For such as these fashion counts for much; and it is in the hope that those who lead taste in the matter of edition bindings may find a scope for their enterprise on somewhat new lines that I ask consideration for this chapter.

49.Bound by Chambolle.

50.Bound by Chambolle.

After all, the costly bindings achieved for wealthy amateurs must always constitute but a small portion of the output of bound work. There will remain the cloth or leather-covered book in greater or smaller editions, for which covers are made in quantities by machinery, separately from the book, and for decorating which metal dies are cut and stamped by means of an embossing press, either with or without the addition of colours or gold leaf. It is of this class of work that I propose to treat, giving first a brief account of the stages through which it has passed in modern times, then showing how it was dealt with, though on a much smaller scale, in the early days of printing, and finally offering some suggestions for its more varied and, as I think, more artistic treatment in the future. This treatment would necessitate the employment of leather; but there is no reason why the less expensive kinds of skins should not be used, not perhaps for books issued in large numbers, but for small editions where a little extra outlay could be easily recovered on the published price of the work. Roans made from the best sheepskins, which are the hides of Scotch sheep, would not be a costly material, and would give good results in the embossing press. Pigskin is a very suitable material for the better class of bindings on which stamps are to be used, and is both strong and comparatively inexpensive, considering the size of the skins. Vellum, again, might be occasionally used for small editions; it blocks well, and is most effective with but little ornament. At one time much in demand for bindings, it ceased for many years to be used at all in England, except in account-book manufacture, when it was generallystained green. It has lately come into fashion again, chiefly for limp work, through the initiative of William Morris, who introduced it on most of the works issued by him from the Kelmscott Press; and both the Doves Press and the Ashendene Press have continued to employ it. To observe its suitability for blocking, either when used limp or on boards, we have only to turn to the coats-of-arms which frequently decorated it on the books of the great collectors of past times. There was a very fine specimen of vellum, ornamented in black, shown at the Burlington Fine Arts Exhibition in 1891. But before considering in detail how edition bindings were treated in the days when, comparatively speaking, books were few in number, we will get some idea of their treatment in more recent times, starting with the last century.

51.Bound by Canape.

Up to, roughly speaking, about 1825, books of the type of dictionaries, classics, school books, and books of reference were mostly bound in roan or sprinkled sheep; while books of history, poetry, and novels were issued in drab or olive-coloured paper boards, with a printed label pasted on the back, or the full title printed on the back and sides, as in the case of Walker’sBritish Classics(1818). It was very rarely that anything but a dull colour was used, though Whittingham’sBritish Poets(1816) had a dark Venetian red paper, and the class of literature known in those days as gift-books or annuals occasionally appeared in vellum-coloured paper, stamped with gold. The more valuable of these, however, filled with choice steel engravings and prepared for the Christmas market, were bound in morocco and silk, and issued under such titles asThe Keepsake,The Bijou,Friendship’s Offering,The Book of Beauty,The Landscape Annual, and so on. Such books commanded a large sale, even in those days; and a writer on the subject, in the first volume ofThe Bookbinder, mentions Finden’sTableaux, two thousand imperial quarto volumes, fullbound in best morocco, gilt. The paper-covered boards, which clothed the larger number of the books of that time, had a way of cracking at the hinge, and so becoming disconnected, a difficulty which was got over about 1822 by covering the back with calico or cloth. As an illustration of this step we may take Scott’sWaverley Novels. TheNovels and Tales, in twelve volumes, appeared in 1819 in pink paper, with white labels; theHistorical Romances, in six volumes, followed in 1822, in blue paper, with pink cloth back and white paper labels; andNovels and Romancesin 1824 in the same fashion. The next step was that of covering books entirely with cloth, introduced by Mr. Archibald Leighton, one of the most enterprising and successful of modern binders, whose business capacity and energy secured for him the patronage of the chief publishers of the day. He bound for Murray, Pickering, Colbourn, Tilt, Charles Knight, Moon, Boys, Graves, and many others, and diedprematurely in 1841, leaving to his family a well-established business which, under a somewhat varying character, has remained in their hands up to the present time.

In theBooksellerof July 4, 1881, there is an interesting account, by Mr. Robert Leighton, of the invention of bookbinders’ cloth by his father, and of how the subsequent embossing of it came about. The exact date of cloth binding he is not able to state, but says that he has in his library a volume, presented to his father by the author, bound in smooth, red cloth, with a paper label. The publishers’ names are Lackington, Hughes, Harding and Lepard, and the date on the title-page is 1822. There is every reason to believe that it is one of a number similarly bound in that year. In those days the white calico was bought in London, sent to the dyers to be dyed, and thence to Mr. John Southgate, of 3 Crown Court, Old Change, to be stiffened and calendered. The embossing of bookbinders’ cloth was suggested byMr. Archibald Leighton to the late Mr. de la Rue, and was carried out so admirably by him, with the appliances he possessed for embossing paper, that his process remains still comparatively unaltered. The desired pattern was engraved on a gun-metal cylinder, and transferred in reverse to one made of compressed paper, strung upon an iron spindle and turned in the lathe to the exact circumference of the gun-metal one, and these two being worked together in a machine, and the pattern transferred from one to the other, the cloth was passed between them and received the impress of the pattern engraved on the metal cylinder.

52.Bound by Canape.

In this way the whole of the cloth used by Messrs. Leighton was for many years embossed upon their own premises. The cylinders were only fourteen or fifteen inches wide, and the machine was turned by manual labour and heated by red-hot irons, which were placed in the gun-metal cylinder and replaced by others when cold. In those days it was customary to engrave special cylinders for books of importance, and you may still occasionally meet with stray volumes ofThe Penny Cyclopædiaor Knight’sPictorial England, and such like popular works, with embossed cloth covers so prepared. Mr. Pickering was the first person for whom Mr. Leighton bound books in cloth, and either his ‘Aldine Poets’ or the ‘Diamond Classics’ were the first books on which it was put. The first person to undertake the embossing of bookbinders’ cloth on cylinders a yard wide was Mr. Law, of Monkwell Street, and for years he embossed all the cloth sold by Mr. James Leonard Wilson, of St. John Street, who had followed Mr. Leighton’s methods in the preparation and sale of the cloth. Mr. Wilson sold his business to Messrs. Duffield, who established a manufactory of bookbinders’ cloth at Hoxton, and so improved it that for years he held practically a monopoly of its output. The exact period when gold-stamping was first applied tocloth is clearly marked by the publication of Lord Byron’s life and works, in seventeen volumes, by Mr. John Murray, of Albemarle Street. The volumes were published monthly, and had a sale of about 20,000. They were bound in green cloth, and the first volume was issued in 1832, with a green paper label on the back, matching the cloth in colour, on which was printed in bronze the title and a coronet; on the second and succeeding volumes the paper label was dispensed with, and the coronet and title were stamped in gold upon the cloth itself. Mr. Henry George Bohn, in a letter addressed to theArt Journal, says that his father, John Henry Bohn, a German bookbinder, established about 1795 in Frith Street, Soho, had a special reputation for gilding on the silk linings of books, as well as calf-graining, tree-marbling, and other special processes, all of which he himself made acquaintance with when a boy. ‘In later life,’ he continues, ‘the knowledge of the peculiardressing used for gilding on silk enabled me to communicate to Mr. Leighton the means of getting cloth prepared so as to take gilding by heated machinery at the rolling or stamping press, which a leading trade firm said was impracticable. The process, however, after a few weeks’ experiments conducted by the late Mr. James Leonard Wilson, was successfully accomplished; and Mr. Leighton thereupon wrote to me triumphantly announcing the fact, and undertaking in consequence to bind in gilt cloth several thousand volumes at half the price I should previously have had to pay, on account of the necessity of having to add leather backs for taking the gold by hand tooling. The book was Martin and Westall’sBible Points, which I brought out in 1832. What to me at the time seemed an accomplishment of little moment has now become of such importance to cloth binders that, could the discovery have been patented, it would have yielded a considerable income.’

53.Bound by Canape.

This Mr. Robert Leighton, who thus wrote of his father’s invention, was himself the pioneer in the use of steam machinery in bookbinding, and he adopted in his own business nearly all the machinery which has since become indispensable to the wholesale binder. He was also the first to use steam power for blocking in gold; the first to use aluminium, and black and coloured inks for cloth cases, examples of which he showed in the exhibition of 1851. He had a great reputation for the designs of his cloth bindings, which he devised in conjunction with his artist cousin, John Leighton, known as Luke Limner, a good instance being the pleasant and appropriate covers for Mrs. Jameson’sLegends of the MadonnaandLegends of the Monastic Orders. The two Leightons, father and son, thus inaugurated and furthered the great revolution in the art of edition binding associated with the employment for the purpose of specially prepared cloth, and its decoration by means of steam-blocking in gold andcolours. It was natural that such an invention should lead to abuse; and in a short time, unfortunately, there was so much gilt ornament that a strong reaction took place, and, while cloth as a material for the cover continued to be used, it was either left plain or had a single bordering line in gold, with or without the title likewise in gold upon the sides. More recently colour printing upon cloth has been revived with excellent results in many cases, especially where an artist who understands the power and limitations of the blocking process has been employed upon the designs. Many of these are entirely without gold, and give representations of scenes taken from the books with excellent impressionist effect. One may mention as instances in England the novels published by Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, such asIn Our Town,Her Majesty’s Minister,Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch,The Hebrew, and many others of the same firm, one of whose members gives special attention to thesuccessful production of cloth covers. The bindings of books issued by Mr. John Lane are also frequently very successful, though it is not so easy to keep in touch with the output of American work on similar lines. Messrs. Puttenham have produced some excellent examples of taste in colour printing, notablyThe Romance of the Colorado River,Puerto Rican,Lights of Childhood, andThe Romance of the Renaissance Chateaux, in which the castle of Langeais is shown in black on a grey cloth. The same house publish likewise one or two books bound in plain cloth, with a photographic print on the cover, which seemed a pleasant variation not in use over here; whileTwenty-Six Historic Ships, also issued by them, is a most satisfactory example of blocking with white foil on a blue ground. At Messrs. Appleton’s are to be found several specimens of bookbinders’ cloth which do not come over here at all. We have but little variety in the nature and preparation of our cloth; while in America it is treated in manydifferent ways, which naturally give very varied results in the blocking-press.

Messrs. Gay and Bird issue some effective colour printing onIn South Africa with Buller, and an attractive example of a loch and mountain scene in four sombre colours onThe Story of Gösta Berling. There is little doubt that the most artistic effects are got by using very few colours in harmony rather than in contrast with the cloth. Gold is much more sparingly used for cloth work than formerly, and with far better taste.Paris in its Splendour, published by the last-named firm, is an interesting example of the different effects that can be obtained from the gold by varieties of matted ground in the block; while inWalden, issued by Messrs. Houghton and Mifflin, the cloth of the cover represents the design, the gold being confined to suggesting the background, with a decidedly original result.

This, then, is the position of cloth binding at the present time as shown by theleading publishers’ work. The technical processes are probably as perfect as such things can be, the drawings are frequently the work of artists, there is far more restraint than formerly both in the matter of design and the employment of colour, while the taste in colour schemes is often as good as possible, and a great advance on that shown a decade or two ago. We do not think that in that special branch of edition bindings there is any great advance to be made or novelty to be assumed, though no doubt we may expect a wider diffusion of the taste that we have noted in the best work and an increasingly small number of book covers inferior in design, colour, and general effect.

In what direction, then, can we hope for any new departure? In order to answer the question, and complete the scope of this chapter, it is necessary to spend a short time in studying the bindings in which books were clothed when they were less numerous, and during a period when they reached what many think the high-water mark of successful decoration.

54.Bound by Canape.

55.Bound by Canape.

The work of the early printers was issued in trade bindings just as publishers’ work is now sent out, but in those days stationers combined the craft of binding with the business of bookselling. The earliest of all were decorated by building up designs from dies, these being arranged in pattern schemes which Mr. W. H. James Weale was the first to analyze and set forth in the catalogue of the fine collection of rubbings of bindings which he presented to the National Art Library of South Kensington in 1894. These schemes were taken from the covers of manuscripts from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, but the same kind of arrangement, though not so elaborate, may be seen on the earliest printed books; also witness the illustrations to the monographs on early Oxford and Cambridge bindings issued by the Bibliographical Society. Small books were stamped with a panel on the sides, and these often had the initials ormark of the binder, which have led in many instances to the ascription of particular bindings to the stationers who issued them, though a still greater number still remain to be identified. The blocks were generally small, and were used sometimes one on each side between a bordering of roughly drawn lines; sometimes two together were placed upon one side, and connected with lines or some simple device; and occasionally on large books four panels were arranged in rows of two. The material of the binding was ass’s-skin, pigskin, calfskin,—though not the fragile kind now associated with the name—and vellum, but chiefly the three first. The stamps or blocks used were cut in intaglio, either on hard wood or on metal, producing the impression in cameo; the design was often both strong and delicate in treatment, the impression after all these years showing great artistic vigour and inventiveness. Indeed, nothing can be more excellent than the dragons, gryphons, and other mythical animals in the pear-shaped,triangular, circular, or square dies arranged within the pattern schemes of the very early bindings. It is known exactly how these stamps were used upon the bindings; it is probable that, when panel stamps were used, the leather was thoroughly wetted and the book then placed in a screw press, under a block of wood or metal, for the length of time needed to obtain a clear impression. InMarques Typographiquesby Silvestre, there is a printers’ mark, used by Petrus Cesar Gaudanus, otherwise Pierre de Keyser, of Ghent, between 1516 and 1547, which represents a book undergoing pressure in a printers’ press; and Josse Bade, likewise a stationer and printer of Paris, who died in 1535, used a somewhat similar one. Though there is obviously a book in the press, the picture may relate to a process not connected with binding; but in any case it probably represents what must have been the procedure used in impressing the stamps. These dies passed from one workshop to another, and none of them areextant to my knowledge in England, though the heraldic blocks used on books in the reigns of HenryVII.and HenryVIII.were decidedly numerous and of great artistic merit. In the Netherlands these designs were the binders’ property and protected as such, but in England, where the binders were not organized into separate guilds, this was not the case, and piracy was everywhere prevalent.

56.Bound by Kieffer.

On many of the blocks there appear two indentations or holes about a quarter of an inch in diameter, situated within the border at the top and bottom of the panel. The precise purport of these is unknown, and many plausible theories have been invented to account for them. One such suggests that they were stop buttons to prevent the stamp from sinking too far into the leather, but it is more probable that they indicate the heads of nails or pegs which fastened the carved block or metal stamp to another piece of wood. Sometimes the impressions made by them are almost imperceptible, at others there has been an attempt at concealment by carrying the ornament across. Many of the subjects pictured on these stamps were of a religious character: thus the Baptism of Christ, Saint John the Baptist, the Crucifixion, Our Lady of Pity, the Ara Cœli, and the different saints and apostles, are all represented upon these early book covers. For an account of them, and for a general history of early stamped bindings, which contains also a certain amount of illustration, the interested reader cannot do better than procure the two volumes, published at half a crown by the Department of Science and Art, at South Kensington, entitledBookbindings and Rubbings of Bindings in the National Art Library of South Kensington Museum, by W. H. James Weale. This class of binding has given rise to much dispute of an archæological kind, with which, happily, we are not concerned at the moment. Whether the stamps were of wood or metal, in what country they originated, their authorship asindicated by initials incorporated in the design, theirprovenanceas apart from the country in which they were in use, who was the inventor of the pattern roller,—all such questions we may leave aside, the point of interest being the fact of the stamp and its astonishing variety of character, for many styles were represented by it, all, with but few exceptions, of great merit and suitability to their end. For the present purpose, and as far as ornament is concerned, they may be classified somewhat as follows:—

1. Small Gothic dies with palmated leaves, animals, and so on, combined in design according to certain fixed patterns, such as those on the Bible written and bound in the monastery at Durham for Hugh Pudsey, bishop of that diocese from 1153 to 1195, and other books in the same cathedral library.

2. Interlaced ornament of several distinct types, some Celtic in character, on the earliest books in leather that have come down to us, executed in the north ofEngland in the twelfth century, others recalling the designs on Roman mosaic pavement; others, again, Eastern in character. Perhaps the most beautiful interlaced patterns of all belong to the latter class, and are the cablework designs found on Italian books of the last half of the fifteenth century, no doubt copied from Arabian examples.

The Spanish bindings of the first half of the sixteenth century have interlaced ornament of as fine a kind, but often lacking in the comparative simplicity of the Italian.

3. The Gothic stamps of mythical animals, enclosed in circles or scrollwork, bordered with Gothic foliage, and frequently containing a legend. These were mostly of German origin, and were no doubt inspired by the work of Albert Dürer and his contemporaries.

4. The heraldic panels decorated with royal badges, used in England during the reigns of HenryVII.and HenryVIII.

5. The panel stamps of a purely decorativekind, such as those with the religious subjects above mentioned; others like the well-known two used by Moulin, of a miller with his sacks, in punning allusion to his name; and those in use by Norins, in which the acorn figures largely as an ornament.

6. Lastly, the panel stamps with two profile busts in medallion within a framework of Renaissance ornament, thoroughly debased in character, and marking the complete decline of the binder’s stamp.

I would sum up, in conclusion, the points I have desired to emphasize, and which are as follows:—

That the flat blocking of cloth work in gold and colours by no means exhausts the treatment possible for edition or publishers’ bindings. It has undoubtedly been largely overdone, for lavish ornament is distinctly out of place as applied to cheap material, such as cloths and linens. Indeed, as decoration for the ordinary novel of a few shillings nothing is in better taste than a single design carried out in two or three colour printings without gold, such as some of those mentioned.

57.Bound by Kieffer.

58.Bound by Kieffer.

That there is room for a totally distinct class of bindings for small editions of more important publications, which should be in leather and blocked with a stamp of fine design without gold, which will give a raised impression. For this purpose zincographic blocks are of no use, but brass, as a material which admits of modelling, would be imperative.

That the designing of such stamps should be put in the hands of the few artists having a genius for the work, which is quite special in character, and belongs more to the art of the medallist than to that of the maker of patterns. We in no way want their undue multiplication, but would rather, indeed, that they should be reserved for a limited number of publications, for which the subject-matter, paper and type constitute together a whole, worthy of a dignified cover that will stand the lapse of time. In these days of book lovers andcollectors of every sort, it is certainly not unlikely that there are many who would welcome a new venture of this kind, in which they would associate the binding with the book, and have no desire to separate the one from the other. In the little Bibelot series, Messrs. Gay and Bird have already made a slight attempt on the lines I am suggesting.

Lastly, we have tried to show that there is no dearth of material from which the designer of such work may glean the principles on which it should be based, in order to secure satisfactory results. Apart from the bindings still extant, which may be studied for the purpose, such sources as theBook of KellsandEarly Christian Art in Ireland, by Margaret Stokes, are full of illustrations in a field strangely little explored by the pattern maker of to-day.

While only a limited number of early examples have been instanced, they are suggestive of what was done in edition binding in the past, and may be doneagain in the future. Such a departure needs, no doubt, the initiative of a printer-publisher who does the best kind of work, and in a field that commands the interested support of the genuine book lover. Surely, however, to find such an one ought not to be difficult with the widespread interest now shown in every detail of book production.

1. For the benefit of those who are interested in the technicality of what is known as ‘tooling,’ we will briefly describe in what it consists. ‘Finishing tools’ are stamps of metal that have a pattern cut on the face, and the shanks of which are held in wooden handles. Such patterns can be complete in themselves, or the single ‘tools’ may have only the elements of a pattern that needs to be built up, for the ‘tools’ must not be too large, or they cannot be worked with sureness of result. The design is composed of these ‘tools’ in combination with gouges which are curved lines. The drawing is first made accurately on paper by means of blackening the tools in a candle or lightly impressing them on an ink-pad. This paper is then placed on the book and slightly attached with paste at each corner. The tools are next gently heated and reworked on the drawing, leaving an impression in ‘blind,’ as it is called, on the leather sufficient to be seen through the gold leaf when this is applied ready for the next operation. The cover is now damped with water and the impressions left by the tools pencilled over with a preparation of white of egg known as glaire, applied with a camel-hair brush. When this is sufficiently dry, but not too dry, the gold leaf is put on, and the individual ‘tools,’ taken at just the right heat, are reworked in the impressions seen faintly beneath the gold. Fresh gold may have to be applied and the pattern reworked several times if the tools are solid or the leather for any reason presents special difficulties. These are, roughly speaking, the processes necessary to the working of a design, though many small ones have been omitted. It will be seen at once, however, from this brief account: firstly, that there are no freehand possibilities about the operation; and secondly, that to be a good finisher a workman should know something of drawing, for he cannot make a correct pattern, much less one that has any organic meaning, unless he understands how to combine small tools with taste and judgment. He must know what to leave out as well as what to put in; if there is inlaying, he must have a sense of colour-harmony and contrast, and he must understand enough of styles not to mix up those of different periods, nor to select one that is unsuitable to the special character of the book.

2. The technical schools, it may be noted, with the exceptions perhaps of the Borough Polytechnic, are not looked on with favour by the trade, who are ever adverse to any alteration in the traditional habits of a craft; but it is difficult to see, without some experiments of the kind, how the learner is to get the advantages of intelligent training, which he did under the old system of apprenticeship. Now that Trades Unions have a tendency to deteriorate the quality and limit the output of the adult worker, it is well that there should be some influences brought to bear upon him in the earlier stages of his career that make for appreciative insight into the meaning of his work and cultivate his taste in its more artistic possibilities.

3. With tooled edges the leaves of the book are gilt as usual, and while still in the press, the head, tail and foredge are worked over with ‘tools’ that are open in character, the finer ones being preferable. These tools must be slightly warmed, so that the impression may be firm. Sometimes the edge is tooled on the gold before burnishing, when the impressed pattern will naturally be of a different colour to the burnished part, as the burnisher will glide over the indentations. At others a different-coloured gold is laid on the top of the first and tooled upon, when the pattern will be left in the new gold on the original colour.

4. This painting can be with or without gold. In any case, it is necessary that the leaves should be fanned out and tied slightly between boards. While in this position the colour is applied, which can be either a stain or water-colour moistened with size. When dry, the leaves are released, and may be left as they are or gilt in the ordinary way, when the colour will show through the gold, gaining a lustre and richness it would not otherwise have.

5. The process of leather cutting and embossing is briefly as follows. The design is first drawn on paper, then transferred to tracing paper and traced through from this on to the leather, which is shoe-calf prepared for the purpose as to quality and thickness. The process is very much like beaten and chased silver work, except that the soft leather has to be reinforced at the back with a cement, and while this cement is hardening the front has to be modelled. It is a mistake to suppose that this work is of a delicate nature. If the design is fairly evenly distributed over the decorated space, handling and the slight friction a well-bound book is subject to in the course of time enhance its appearance. Again, by tracing and cutting the design without embossing it a different surface is obtained, while the application of gold tooling and that of various colour tints are additions of treatment that give considerable scope to the finisher.

6. The author wishes to acknowledge permission, which she has received fromThe Printing Art, to print in this country this last chapter, which first appeared in that periodical.

Printed byT. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTESSilently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter.Corrected the first two items in theErratum. The last item was left unchanged.Moved some illustrations several pages to prevent them from breaking paragraphs. Altered the links in the table of illustrations accordingly.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

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