- About Bookbinding -

The Technique of the Craft part 3

The volume thus far advanced is clamped in a press; and it is allowed to repose for a while and to gain strength. Then the edges are cut, or at least the top edge is cut, the other margins being better left intact, to delight the owner's eye; as it is only on top that a volume standing on a shelf can accumulate dust, it is only the top edge that needs to be smoothed so that the dust can be blown off or wiped away at will. The cut edges, be it the top only, or top, bottom, and fore edge, are then marbled or gilded; sometimes they are gilded over marbling, to the added richness of the work. The back is then lined, and, when the binder is conscientious, a narrow leather joint is affixed, to act as a hinge for the covers. The headband is woven in. After that the leather - morocco, calf, or what not - is stretched tightly and snugly over the book, and glued fast. When the end-papers are pasted to the covers, the task of the forwarder is done, and the book is ready for the finisher who is to decorate it.

What the finisher has to do is to invent a design for the sides and back of the volume which is appropriate to the book, to its subject, to its owner, to its size, and to the kind of leather with which it is covered. This design must be one which can be worked out with the implements at his command. Every artist must consider the physical limitations of the art he practices, and the chief limitation of the artist who decorates a book is that the design he invents for it must be capable of accomplishment by the fillets, which make a straight line, by the gouges, which make curved lines, and by the various other tools, as they are termed. In the proper cutting and, selection of tools is the secret of book-decoration. Mr. Matthews notes the superiority of the French tool-cutters over the American and British; and Mr. CobdenSanderson once told me of the difficulty he has had in getting cut such tools as he needed.

Having determined on the scheme of his design, the finisher selects the tools with which to execute it. Mr. Cobden-Sanderson even makes a habit of using the actual tools in the sketching out of his pattern, blackening them in the flame of a candle so that they can be transferred to paper. Often professional binders will have tools especially prepared for a special work. The more accomplished the workman, the smaller and more elementary his tools will be; he will decline to use a spray of leaves or a festoon cut all in a single piece, preferring to impress every leaf separately. M. MariusMichel is loud in the praises of a finisher who worked for Henry II., and who accomplished intricate and lovely decorations with no other implement than a fillet for the straight lines, and a set of gouges for the curves and circles; and these were all that Gilson used in the finishing of the most elaborate Hispano-Moresque cover and lining of the copy of Owen Jones's "Alhambra," which Mr. Matthews bound for the New York exhibition of 1853, and which took six months to complete, and cost $500.

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