- About Bookbinding -

Book Binders of the Late 1800's part 3

This artistic sterility was probably due to the lack of intelligent patronage, and the sluggishness of the book-lover is responsible for this disheartening result.

But the custom seems to obtain even in the present day, if one may accept as evidence the second edition of Mr. Zaehnsdorf's "The Art of Bookbinding." In this practical guide to his art, the author, a bookbinder himself and the son of a bookbinder, gives plates of typical covers of the chief styles; and these are not genuine specimens bound for Grolier or by "Le Gascon." They are apparently Mr. Zaehnsdorf's own handiwork; certainly the plate called" Gascon" (sic) cannot be the work of the great Frenchman, because the book is one first published perhaps two hundred years after his death. Here we discover a conscientious craftsman not only content to be a humble imitator, but so deficient in any appreciation of originality that he sees no difference between the model of his master and his own second hand copy.

And yet Francis Bedford was capable of original work, simple always, but with a quiet dignity of its own. Mr. Zaehnsdorf is an accomplished workman, able to send from his shop books dressed with propriety, and, at times, not without individuality. Mr. Roger de Coverly is another British binder whose labors are liked by book lovers. The most original figure among the English binders of this century in fact, the only original figure since Roger Payne is Mr. Cobden-Sanderson.

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