- About Bookbinding -
Bookbindings Old and New
Notes of a Book-Lover by Brander Matthews
The Merits of Machine Binding part 2
Stamping was probably done by a hand press, such as British binders kept ready to impress on the sides of leather covered volumes the broad block with the owner's arms. From this "arming press," as it was called, has been evolved by slow degrees the powerful and rapid machinery of the modern bindery. Murray's "Family Library" was probably the first series on which the title was printed with ordinary ink. Then came, in 1832, Charles Knight's "Penny Magazine," and, in 1833, his "Penny Cyclopedia," the successive volumes of which were bound by Archibald Leighton in stamped cloth. Mr. Wheatley says that at first the cloth was stamped before it was put on the boards, a proceeding which proved unsatisfactory from the beginning, so the boards were covered with cloth, which was then stamped.
Thereafter the art speedily improved. The cloth was dyed to any desired colour; and it was run through rollers to give it any desired grain or texture. The old fashioned arming press was modified and made stronger; and steam was swiftly substituted for foot power. Subsequent improvements enabled the pattern to be imprinted on the side and back of the book in as many colors as an artist could use to advantage or the publisher was willing to pay for. And the work can be done with extraordinary speed; it is no unusual thing now for a bindery to turn out several thousand copies of a book in the course of twenty four hours.
Here we come to the essential difference between bookbinding by hand and bookbinding by machinery. In artistic hand work the book is bound in leather and then decorated. In edition work the cloth case is made and decorated apart from the book itself, which is afterward fastened in. The former is a slow process, and in its higher manifestations it is an art. The latter is a rapid process, and it is wholly mechanical, except in so far as the designer of the stamp is concerned. And therefore it is on the designer of the stamp that' the duty lies of making beautiful the books demanded by our modern and democratic civilization.