An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
2
authority; unless the Catalogue of the Exhibition of Bookbindings at the Burlt'ngton Fine Arts
Club, London, 1891, may be called such. The plates, which occur in the largepaper copies of this
work, render it of great value in the general history of bookbinding, and I have constantly
referred to it. The excellent introduction to the Catalogue has lately been republished by its
author, Miss Prideaux, with the addition of her Bibliography and other papers: The Facsimiles of
choice examples of Historical and A rtistic Bookbinding, London, 1889, published by Mr. Bernard
Quaritch, is a smaller work of the same kind, and is chiefly valuable on account of its plates.
The printed book, to which M. Dudin refers, was written by Jean Vincent Capronnier de
Gauffecourt, born at Paris in 1692, and an amateur of printing and binding, which arts he
practised in his country house at Montbrillant, near Geneva. It is entitled: Trait! de la Reliure des
Livres, and was published at Lyons, without date, or place, in April, 1763. The author, in an
introductory epistle, says, that it was printed by himself, 'pour faire usage de son heureuse
oisivete.' Only twenty-five copies were printed and the little work is chiefly remarkable for its
extraordinary rarity, and for the circumstances of its production. An interesting account of
Capronnier de Gauffecourt is to be found, under his name, in the admirable work of M.Thoinan.
Another early treatise in French exists in the article upon Binding, in the Dictionnaire Unzverset
de Commerce, d' Hzstoire N aturelle, d' Arts et Metiers, by Jacques Savary-Desbrulons, Paris,
1730.
In England, John Bagford seems the first to have attempted some methodical account of the
art; and two essays, by him, remain un printed among the Harleian Manuscripts [Nos. 5910, pt. i.,
and 5943]. The first important work, published in this country, was the Bibtz'opegia; or, The Art of
Bookbinding, in all #s Branches, by John Hannett, first published at London, in 1835, under the
'pseudonym of John Andrews Arnett; a book which has passed through several editions, and has
been translated into German. A more recent work is The Art of Bookbinding, London, 1880, by
Joseph W. Zaehnsdorf; a second edition of which appeared in 1890. Other technical works in
English, French, and especially in German, may be found enumerated in Miss Prideaux's
Biblt'ograph)' of Binding.
. I have consulted the greater number of these printed books, especially the treatise of M. Dudin,
and Mr. Zaehnsdorf's handbook, which admirably illustrates t~ practice of the commercial
bookbinder, at the present time. To these, I should add two papers by Mr. T. J. Cobden
Sanderson, which I have freely used: the first is an abstract of a lecture upon bookbinding, given
in 1889, at the Edinburgh Meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Art, which
is to be found printed among the Transactions of the Society for that year; the second is an
article entitled Bookbinding, which was published in the number of the English Illustrated
Magazine, for January, 1891.