- About Bookbinding -

In the Congressional Library I had the periodicals which are analyzed in Poole's
Index of Periodical Literature thoroughly compared and re-Iettered, wherever
necessary, to make the series of volumes correspond with the references in
that invaluable and labor-saving index. For instance, the Eclectic Review, as
published in London, had eight distinct and successive series (thus confusing
reference by making eight different volumes called 1, 2, 3, etc.) each with a
different numbering, "First series, 2d series," etc., which Poole's Index very
properly consolidated into one, for convenient reference. By adding the figures
as scheduled in that work-prefixed by the words Poole's Index No. - or simply
Poole, in small letters, followed by the figure of the volume as given in that
index, you will find a saving of time in hunting and supplying references that is
almost incalculable. If you cannot afford to have this re-numbering done by a
binder in gilt letters, it will many times repay the cost and time of doing it on
thin manila paper titles, written or printed by a numbering machine and pasted
on the backs of the volumes.
In all periodicals, - magazines and serials of every kind, - the covers and their
advertisements should be bound in their proper place, with each month or
number of the periodical, though it may interrupt the continuity of the paging.
Thus will be preserved valuable contemporary records respecting prices,
bibliographical information, etc., which should never be destroyed, as it is
illustrative of the life and history of the period. The covers of the magazines,
too, frequently contain the table of contents of the number, which of course
must be prefixed to it, in order to be of any use. If advertising pages are very
numerous and bulky, (as in many popular periodicals of late years) they may
well be bound at the end of the volume, or, if so many as to make the volume
excessively thick, they might be bound in a supplementary volume. In all books,
half-titles or bastard titles, as they are called, should be bound in, as they are a
part of the book.
With each lot of books to be bound, there should always be sent a sample
volume of good work as a pattern, that the binder may have no excuse for
hasty or inferior workmanship.
The Grolier Club was founded in New York in 1884, having for its objects to
promote the literary study and progress of the arts pertaining to the
production of books. It has published more than twenty books in sumptuous
style, and mostly in quarto form, the editions being limited to 150 copies at
first, since increased to 300, under the rapidly enlarging membership of the
Club. Most of these books relate to fine binding, fine printing, or fine illustration
of books, or are intended to exemplify them, and by their means, by lectures,
and exhibitions of fine book-work, this society has contributed much toward the
diffusion of correct taste. More care has been bestowed upon fine binding in
New York than in London itself. In fact, elegant book-binding is coming to be
recognized as one of the foremost of the decorative arts.
The art of designing book-covers and patterns for gilding books has engaged
the talents of many artists, among whom may be named Edwin A. Abbey,
Howard Pyle, Stanford White, and Elihu Vedder. Nor have skilful designs been
wanting among women, as witness Mrs. Whitman's elegant tea-leaf border for
the cover of Dr. O. W. Holmes's "Over the Tea-cups," and Miss Alice Morse's
arabesques and medallions for Lafcadio Hearn's "Two Years in the French West
Indies." Miss May Morris designed many tasteful letters for the fine bindings
executed by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson of London, and Kate Greenaway's many
exquisite little books for little people have become widely known for their quaint
and curious cover designs. A new field thus opens for skilled cultivators of the
beautiful who have an eye for the art of drawing.
Mr. William Matthews, the accomplished New York binder, in an address before
the Grolier Club in 1895, said: "I have been astonished that so few women-in
America, I know none - are encouragers of the art; they certainly could not
bestow their taste on anything that would do them more credit, or as a study,
give them more satisfaction." It is but fair to add that since this judgment was
put forth, its implied reproach is no longer applicable: a number of American
women have interested themselves in the study of binding as a fine art; and
some few in practical work as binders of books.
There is no question that readers take a greater interest in books that are
neatly and attractively bound, than in volumes dressed in a mean garb. No book
owner or librarian with any knowledge of the incurable defects of calf, sheep, or
roan leather, if he has any regard for the usefulness or the economies of his
library, will use them in binding books that are to possess permanent value in
personal or public use. True economy lies in employing the best description of
binding in the first instance.
When it is considered that the purposed object of bookbinding is to preserve in
a shape at once attractive and permanent, the best and noblest thoughts of
man, it rises to a high rank among the arts. Side by side with printing, it strives
after that perfection which shall ensure the perpetuity of human thought. Thus
a book, clothed in morocco, is not a mere piece of mechanism, but a vehicle in
which the intellectual life of writers no longer on earth is transmitted from age
to age. And it is the art of bookbinding which renders libraries possible. What
the author, the printer, and the binder create, the library takes charge of and
preserves. It is thus that the material and the practical link themselves
indissolubly with the ideal and the ideal of every true librarian should be so to
care for the embodiments of intelligence entrusted to his guardianship, that
they may become in the highest degree useful to mankind. In this sense, the
care bestowed upon thorough and enduring binding can hardly be overrated,
since the life of the book depends upon it.

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