An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
10
in which the plough runs. This machine, which is used in trimming the boards and edges of a
book, is constructed on the principle of a knife cutting against a straight edge. It is capable of
two motions: by the first, the whole plough is worked to and fro, over the press, being kept in its
place by the groove on the left cheek of the lying-press; by the second, the knife of the plough,
which moves above the right cheek of the press, is gradually brought nearer to its left cheek, by
the means of a screw. Many elaborate cutting machines have been invented in recent times, but
of them there is no present occasion here to speak.
If the back is to be rigid, a piece of leather is usually glued, in the better kind of modern work,
along the whole of its length. Books bound in calf, generally have rigid backs, on account of the
liability of that leather to split and break away: but the paper of such books should be of a
nature, which will allow the leaves to fall by their own weight, when they are opened. The hard
paper, upon which so many contemporary books are printed, will not permit the use of this
method, which is not altogether to be commended. But if the book is to have a flexible back,
there are two ways in which it may be treated: either the covering may be directly pasted upon
the back; or it may be left detached, in such a manner, that, when the book is opened, the back
shall spring inwards, while the covering shall bulge outwards; a hollow space being formed
between the two. A volume treated thus is said to have a hollow back. Many old books, covered
in vellum, especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were bound with hollow
backs, on account of the unyielding nature of that material: but they were generally sewed on
flat slips of parchment, or leather, which were pressed into the back, when it was glued up, so
as not to show. These slips were then taken externally over the hinges of the book, through the
vellum covering, before they were secured to the inner side of the boards: and no indication of
the bands was left upon the back, which was often unornamented, except by the inscription of
the title in pen and ink. In some examples of the sixteenth century, this was written in a large,
decorative, hand along the back of the book, from the head to the tail. Books ~re, now, rarely
bound in vellum, after this fashion, which is to be commended, by reason of its strength and
durability: but the use of hollow backs in leather-bound books, where the cords cannot thus be
laced through the covering, is scarcely to be approved. True, it is, that the nature of a hollow
back is such as to form a