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The Antiquity of Edition Binding part 2

Of a certainty the great manifestations of art are hopelessly rare; and, as a matter of fact, little things far more often attain perfection and reward our seeking. A chromolithographic placard does not seem to promise much but in M. Cheret's hands the pictorial poster is never insipid, and has often a most engaging and masterly originality. Cast iron is an unlovely material but by recognizing its limitations, Alfred Stevens was able to give dignity to the little lions on the outer rail at the British Museum. So a book cover stamped by steam may be a thing of beauty if it is designed by Mrs. Whitman or by Mr. Stanford White. It is a fact that commercial bookbinding, often ignorantly looked down on, is now at a most interesting stage of its history; and it seems to me very well worth while to consider some of its recent successes.

In a paper on "Bookbinding considered as a Fine Art, Mechanical Art and Manufacture," read before the Society of Arts in London, Mr. Henry B. Wheatley declared that "cloth binding is entirely an English invention." Just as the fine-art of bookbinding began in Italy during the Renascence, and was most highly cultivated in France, so the art of cloth-binding, arising in Great Britain, has been carried to a higher level of mechanical perfection by machines invented or mightily improved in the United States; and I am inclined to think that the principles which should govern the decoration of cloth covers are better understood in New York than in London - in so far at least as one may judge from the results of their application.

While it is true enough that cloth binding is an English invention, commercial binding, "edition work," as it is called, is almost as old as printing itself. The early printers, from Aldus in Venice to Caxton in London, were binders as they were also publishers; and very early in the history of the trade were there attempts to simplify the toil of the finisher who decorated the leather sides and backs of the broad volumes. In the finest of the early books every touch of gold on the cover was made by a separate tool, which the skilled workman impressed on the leather at least twice, once without the gold, and once to affix it, a slow, laborious, and expensive process.

One of the first of the devices adopted as a short cut was the "roulette" or roll, a complete pattern engraved on the circumference of a wheel, and reproducing itself as the wheel was rolled across the leather. This wheel served for borders and frameworks; it was often most admirably engraved; and its employment was not altogether injurious if proper care was taken to match the corners with precision. In these days when omniscience is everybody's foible it may seem like affectation for me frankly to confess ignorance as to the origin of the roll, but I think it was first seen in Italy.

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