- About Bookbinding -
Bookbindings Old and New
Notes of a Book-Lover by Brander Matthews
Paper Covers part 4
After Mr. Crane had shown the way, Miss Kate Greenaway began to follow in his footsteps with her exquisite little books for little people; and so did the late Randolph Caldecott, with his more robust drawing. It was in 1878 that Caldecott published the first of his picture books - "The House that Jack Built"; and in the same year came out the second "John Gilpin." Fourteen more appeared in the next seven years, ending with "The Great Panjandrum Himself," which bore the date of 1885. It was in 1879 that Miss Greenaway published the first of her picture books, the well known "Kate Greenaway's Little Folks' Painting Book"; and in the same year came also her " Under the Window." "The Kate Greenaway Birthday Book" bears the date of I 880, and the "Mother Goose" appeared the year after.
I am under the impression that it is to a study of Miss Greenaway's simple and quaint drawings that M. Boutet de Monvel owes his inspiration for the French picture books for children that he has published in Paris more recently. Perhaps this is the first time any British artist has influenced a Frenchman since the Fontainebleau school rediscovered landscape in the paintings of Constable.
I have been able to give but a hasty glance over a field where there is much to be gleaned by the patient laborer; but I trust I have succeeded in suggesting that the paper cover is not a thing to be despised, that it may be a thing of beauty, and that it may be a thing of value. One word of warning, and I have done: never destroy the paper cover of a book, even of the least important pamphlet. The integument is an integral part of the book; and if the book is worth keeping, so cover, which should be bound in always. The wrapper may contain advertisements or other information, or it may have a portrait or some other illustration not contained within the book itself; and then if you remove the wrapper your book will never be perfect. It will always be short of something; it will always be defective and incomplete, even though it should be in the binding of a Trautz Bauzonnet or of a Cobden Sanderson.