An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
A hollow back is made by pasting a piece of paper, commonly brown paper, of the height of
the book, upon the back. The paper projecting beyond the one edge of
the back, is folded over, and cut to the width of the back; after which, the paper, projecting
beyond the other edge, is treated in a similar fashion. The two pieces of paper, thus folded
over, are then pasted upon one another, so as to leave a hollow space, when the book is
open, between them and that portion of the paper, which is pasted upon the back. The
false bands are usually made of several thicknesses of leather, pasted together, and cut
into strips: and they ordinarily have no relation whatever to the real bands on which the
sections are sewn.
COVERING .-The book is now ready for covering; and for this purpose, nearly every kind of
skin, and embroidered, or woven, fabric has been employed, which could well be used. In
the middle ages, woven fabrics were largely employed for this purpose: but the use of
skins in covering books, appears to have existed from the earliest times. The bindings of
forrell, 'the rough undressed skin of the beast,' were already, at the end of the fifteenth
century, superseded by those of finished leather; the native leathers being naturally found
in use, in a country, before those of foreign manufacture. Thus, among the books in the Old
Royal Collection, few are to be found covered in morocco, before the time of James I.; calf,
vellum, sheep, doe, and pig-skin, being commonly found on English books, of the sixteenth
century. The books of Iceland are covered in seal-skin; and there is a copy of Governor
Phillip's Voyage to Botany Bay, London, 1789 [C. 47. i.], in the British Museum, which is
bound in kangaroo-skin. Dibdin alludes to a copy of the Historical Works of Charles James
Fox, which Jeffrey, the bookseller had covered in fox-skin: and the same writer hints at a
book, 'which the renowned Dr. Askew caused to be bound in human skin.'
It was peculiarly clear in colour; fine in grain; and soft, yet firm, in substance. The goatskins
are now brought to the London market, in a rough state; and the finest leathers are
prepared from them, in Paris: but straight-grained morocco, which was much in use at the
beginning of the present century, still continues to be a peculiarity of English manufacture.
But, without doubt, no colored leather is comparable to morocco, either for beauty, or for
use. It was formerly brought from the Levant, Turkey, and the Barbary coast, where the
leather was made from goat-skins, tanned with sumach, and finished in black, or in various
colors: and it is this leather, which we still admire, both for its beauty, and its durability, on
the fine bindings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.