When the time comes for applying decoration to a binding, the bookbinder—here using a single-fillet roll—can exercise his artistic imagination or follow a traditional pattern.
When the time comes for applying decoration to a binding, the bookbinder—here using a single-fillet roll—can exercise his artistic imagination or follow a traditional pattern.
Materials
Tools & Equipment
The printer’s job was done when the flat sheets of paper came off his press, each sheet containing four or more printed pages arranged so that folding would bring the pages into proper sequence. The binder’s first task was to fold thesheets into “signatures” of four, eight, twelve, or sixteen pages.
Sheets folded once—into two leaves, a four-page signature—made a large-format book called a “folio.” Two folds in each sheet made eight-page signatures and “quarto” books. Three folds gave “octavo” volumes of sixteen-page signatures. A different arrangement of folds produced twelve pages in a signature and a “duodecimo” book. For any number of folds, however, a bone or ivory folder—a thin, smooth blade—was essential for rapid and accurate work. And it came in handy for a number of other binding operations, too.
After he had folded all the printed sheets, the binder gathered a full set of signatures in the proper order to make the book. On his stitching frame—which was simply a four-piece vertical framework, the upper crosspiece adjustable in height—he stretched four to six leather thongs or pieces of hemp cord. With needle and strong linen thread he then stitched the signatures, one after another, through their center folds to each of the crossbands. The sewing frame held them parallel to each other and at right angles to the pages.
These bands gave bound books their flexibility and created the ridges across the spine characteristic of most of them. The stitch used in sewing the signatures to the bands was about as simple as could be, but it cannot be duplicated by any machine yet devised. The crossbands and the stitching together were the keys to the all-but-everlasting durability and the flat opening of the well-made book.
The binder next squared up the back of the book and applied glue to it. When dry, he put the book in the trimming press and trimmed the fore edge, head, and tail, then with his backing hammer rounded off the spine. Having cut the boards just a bit larger than page size, he punched holes through them close to their back edges. These holes he spaced in pairs to match the position of the bands, which he laced through the holes, pasted firm, and pounded smooth.
Very little the binder had done so far would be visible in the finished product. But at this point he could begin to put his artistry on display. Selecting silk thread in two colors to suit his taste, he bound a narrow piece of leather across both the top and bottom of the spine, completely covering them with something like a buttonhole stitch. These “headbands” added little to the strength but much to the appearance of a book. Careful binders said that a book should no more be seen in a library without headbands than a gentleman should appear in public minus a collar.
In the “trimming press and plough,” the bound pages of a book are clamped between the heavy horizontal beams of the press while a knife held in the plough slides back and forth, planing the exposed edge of the book smooth and even.
In the “trimming press and plough,” the bound pages of a book are clamped between the heavy horizontal beams of the press while a knife held in the plough slides back and forth, planing the exposed edge of the book smooth and even.
Next came the “drawing on” of the cover. The binder cut a piece of calfskin approximately ¾ inch larger all around than the covers of the book opened out flat, and with his skiving knife pared the margins of the leather very thin. After the leather had been well soaked with water on the outer or grain side and with paste on the inner side, the binder carefully molded it around the spine and smoothed it onto the boards—being careful not to stretch it. The pared margins were then turned in and the volume, except for minor touches and drying, was finally ready to be decorated.
Having decided on the pattern of decoration he wished to apply, the binder heated the appropriate brass tools to “blind in” the design. The tools had to be hot enough to make a sharp impression in the leather, but not hot enoughto burn it. Each had to be pressed into the leather with just the right weight—not too much and not too little—to produce the desired effect.
If the pattern was also to be gilded, the binder prepared a solution of white-of-egg, called “glair,” and painted it into the blind impressions. Having laid gold leaf thereon, he again pressed the same heated tools carefully in the same indentations. The excess gold was then wiped off and the leather cleaned with diluted vinegar and dressed with a good leather dressing.
This is the Printing Office in Williamsburg, restored to look as it did in the eighteenth century when it was occupied in succession by William Parks, William Hunter, Joseph Royle, Alexander Purdie, and John Dixon with his partners William Hunter, Jr., and Thomas Nicolson.
This is the Printing Office in Williamsburg, restored to look as it did in the eighteenth century when it was occupied in succession by William Parks, William Hunter, Joseph Royle, Alexander Purdie, and John Dixon with his partners William Hunter, Jr., and Thomas Nicolson.
Finally, the endpapers were pasted down to the insides of the boards and the book was complete. It took perhaps eight to ten hours of actual working time for a single volume, but spaced over as much as two weeks to allow drying time between processes.
Just as the printing office of William Parks and his successors stood on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg two centuries ago, so it stands again today on its original site. Again today it includes a bindery where gentlemen and ladies may bespeak books to be bound or rebound in the most exact manner and the most elegant taste. The master binder assures his patrons that he uses only the best materials and can, if they so wish, decorate a volume with the egg, the Mousetrap, or any other roll or ornament in his stock that pleases their fancy.
For he not only uses the same kinds of tools used in the eighteenth century; some of them are actually recut to produce replicas of the old patterns. And his methods of work, too, are the same that were employed in this shop by men who put sturdy covers on the volumes of William Byrd II, Thomas Jefferson, and Norborne Berkeley—otherwise titled Lord Botetourt.
Those who may be interested in pursuing further either the historical or the handicraft aspects of bookbinding will find the following list useful. Most of these books also include bibliographies or reading lists.
Susan Stromei Berg, comp.,Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg Imprints.New York: Clearwater Publishing Co., 1986.
Vito J. Brenni,Bookbinding: A Guide to the Literature.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982.
Edith Diehl,Bookbinding, Its Background and Technique.5th ed. rev. Port Washington, N. Y.: Kennikat Press, 1965.
Hannah D. French,Bookbinding in Early America: Seven Essays on Masters and Methods.Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1986.
David Muir,Binding and Repairing Books by Hand.New York: Arco Publishing Co., 1977.
Howard M. Nixon,Five Centuries of English Bookbinding.London: Scholar Press, 1978.
Matt T. Roberts and Don Etherington,Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology.Washington, D. C.: Library of Congress, 1982.
C. Clement Samford and John M. Hemphill II,Bookbinding in Colonial Virginia.Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1966.
Walters Art Gallery,The History of Bookbinding, 525-1950 A.D.Baltimore: The Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1957.
Lawrence C. Wroth,The Colonial Printer.Portland, Me.: Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1938.
Laura S. Young,Bookbinding and Conservation by Hand: A Working Guide.New York: R. R. Bowker Co., 1981.
The Bookbinder in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburgwas first published in 1959 and previously reprinted in 1964, 1970, 1973, 1978, and 1986. Written by Thomas K. Ford, editor of publications at Colonial Williamsburg until 1976, it is based largely on a monograph prepared jointly by C. Clement Samford, then the master bookbinder, and John M. Hemphill II, a member of the Department of Research. The monograph has been published asBookbinding in Colonial Virginia(Williamsburg Research Studies, 1966).