- About Bookbinding -

Book-plates having been briefly referred to above, a few words as to their styles
and uses may be pertinent.  The name “book-plate” is a clumsy and misleading
title, suggesting to the uninitiated the illustrations or plates which embellish the
text of a book.  The name Ex libris, two Latin words used for book-plate in all
European languages, is clearer, but still not exactly, as a definition of the thing,
signifying simply “out of books.”  A book-plate is the owner’s or the library’s
distinctive mark of ownership, pasted upon the inside cover, whether it be a
simple name-label, or an elaborately engraved heraldic or pictorial device.  The
earliest known book-plates date back to the fifteenth century, and are of
German origin, though English plates are known as early as 1700.  In France,
specimens appear for the first time between 1600 and 1650.
Foreign book-plates are, as a rule, heraldic in design, as are also the early
American plates, representing the coat of arms of family crest of the owner of
the books, with a motto of some kind.  The fashion of collecting these owners’
marks, as such, irrespective of the books containing them, is a recent and very
possibly a passing mania.  Still, there is something of interest in early American
plates, and in those used by distinguished men, aside from the collector's fad.
Some of the first American engravers showed their skill in these designs, and a
signed and dated plate engraved by Nathaniel Hurd, for example, of Boston, is
of some historic value as an example of early American art. He engraved many
plates about the middle of the last century, and died in 1777. Paul Revere, who
was an engraver, designed and executed some few plates, which are rare, and
highly prized, more for his name than for his skill, for, as generally known, he
was a noted patriot of the Revolutionary period, belonging by his acts to the
heroic age of American history.
A book of George Washington's containing his bookplate has an added interest,
though the plate itself is an armorial design, not at all well executed. Its motto is
"exitus acta probat"- the event justifies the deed. From its rarity and the high
price it commands, it has probably been the only American book-plate ever
counterfeited. At an auction sale of books in Washington in 1863, this
counterfeit plate had been placed in many books to give a fictitious value, but
the fraud was discovered and announced by the present writer, just before the
books were sold. Yet the sale was attended by many attracted to bid upon
books said to have been owned by Washington, and among them the late Dr.
W. F. Poole, then librarian of the Boston Athenaeum, which possesses most of
the library authentically known to have been at Mount Vernon.
John Adams and John Quincy Adams used book-plates, and James Monroe and
John Tyler each had a plain name label. These are all of our presidents known to
have used them, except General Carfield, who had a printed bookplate of simple
design, with the motto "inter folia fructus." Eleven of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence are known to have had these signs of gentle birth -
for in the early years of the American Colonies, it was only the families of
aristocratic connection and scholarly tastes who indulged in what may be termed
a superfluous luxury.
The plates used among the Southern settlers were generally ordered from
England, and not at all American. The Northern plates were more frequently of
native design and execution, and therefore of much greater value and interest,
though far inferior in style of workmanship and elaboration of ornament to the
best European ones.
The ordinary library label is also a book-plate, and some of the early libraries and
small collections have elaborate designs. The early Harvard College library plate
was a large and fine piece of engraving by Hurd. The Harvard Library had some
few of this fine engraved label printed in red ink, and placed in the rarer books of
the library as a reminder that the works containing the rubricated book-plates
were not to be drawn out by students.
The learned bibliophile and librarian of Florence, Magliabecchi, who died in 1714,
devised for his library of thirty thousand volumes, which he bequeathed to the
Grand Duke of Tuscany, a book-plate representing his own profile on a medal
surrounded with books and oak boughs, with the inscription-"Antonius
Magliabecchius Florentinus."
Some book-plates embody designs of great beauty. The late George Bancroft's,
engraved on copper, represented a winged cherub (from Raphael) gazing sun-
ward, holding a tablet with the inscription "Eis phaos," toward the light.
Some French book-plates aim at humor or caricature. One familiar example
represents an old book-worm mounted on a tall ladder in a library, profoundly
absorbed in reading, and utterly unconscious that the room beneath him is on
fire.
To those who ask of what possible utility it can be to cultivate so unfruitful a
pursuit as the devising or the collecting of book-plates, it may be pertinent to
state the claim made in behalf of the amateurs of this art, by a connoisseur,
namely, "Book-plates foster the study of art, history, genealogy, and human
character." On this theory, we may add, the coat of arms or family crest teaches
heraldry; the mottoes or inscriptions chosen cultivate the taste for language and
sententious literature; the engraving appeals to the sense of the artistic; the
names of early or ancient families who are often thus commemorated teach
biography, history, or genealogy; while the great variety of sentiments selected
for the plates illustrate the character and taste of those selecting them.
On the other hand, it must be said that the coat of arms fails to indicate
individual taste or genius, and might better be supplanted by original and
characteristic designs, especially such as relate to books, libraries, and learning.

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