An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
24
Walther, and H. Falkner: and that Dibdin speaks at length about the greater number of these
successors to Roger Payne, in his Decameron. Clark, famous for his tree-calf, bound for some
time with Charles Lewis, and eventually went into partnership with Francis Bedford. This latter
binder, with Robert Riviere and Joseph Zaehnsdorf, belong entirely to the present century. They
were admirable workmen, who possess the distinction, which has been possible only in the
present century, of having finished their books in every style, but their own. The forwarding of
Francis Bedford, I should add however, was especially accomplished. Among living binders, there
is one workman, of whom I cannot refrain from speaking; since he had done for bookbinding,
what Mr. William Morris has done for glass painting, tapestry-weaving, and other decorative
arts: I mean Mr. Cobden Sanderson. A graduate of Oxford, he left the profession of a barrister
for that of a bookbinder: and learned his craft under Mr. Roger de Coverly, one of the most
conscientious of living workmen. Until recently, when he established a binder's shop at
Hammersmith, Mr. Sanderson executed the whole, both of the forwarding, and the finishing of
his books, with the exception of the sewing, with his own hands: and therefore his productions
have hitherto been comparatively few in number. The binding of a copy of the facsimile, issued
by Mr. Wise, of the first edition of Shelley's Adonais, executed by him, under these conditions, is
figured in Plate XII. It is covered in orange-red morocco; and both the colour and texture of the
leather are of great beauty. Mr. Sanderson's designs are composed of a few simple tools,
arranged upon a geometrical plan of equal simplicity, the figured tools being directly copied from
natural forms; but the total effect is one of great richness and elaboration. Whatever strictures
may be passed upon his work, it cannot be denied, that, like Roger Payne, he has invented a
distinguished manner of his own; and that, in his hands, gold-tooling has again become a living
art. It is remarkable, that the chief characteristic of the work of these two binders is the one
which is hardest to discover in the work of the sixteenth, and seventeenth, centuries, a trait of
personality, of individual distinction.