Chapter I: Front Matter

THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES
OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS
EDITED BY W. R. LETHABY

BOOKBINDING

BOOKBINDING, AND
THE CARE OF BOOKS

A HANDBOOK FOR AMATEURS
BOOKBINDERS & LIBRARIANS
BY DOUGLAS COCKERELL

WITH

DRAWINGS BY NOEL ROOKE
AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1910

COPYRIGHT, 1901,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

_All rights reserved_

EDITOR'S PREFACE

In issuing this volume of a series of Handbooks on the Artistic Crafts, it will be well to state what are our general aims.

In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books of workshop practice, from the points of view of experts who have critically examined the methods current in the shops, and putting aside vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship, and to set up a standard of quality in the crafts which are more especially associated with design. Secondly, in doing this, we hope to treat design itself as an essential part of good workmanship. During the last century most of the arts, save painting and sculpture of an academic kind, were little considered, and there was a tendency to look on "design" as a mere matter of _appearance_. Such "ornamentation" as there was was usually obtained by following in a mechanical way a drawing provided by an artist who often knew little of the technical processes involved in production. With the critical attention given to the crafts by Ruskin and Morris, it came to be seen that it was impossible to detach design from craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true design is an inseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selection of good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper finish and so on, far more than mere ornament, and indeed, that ornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought--that is, from design--inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, divorced from workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into affectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined as a language addressed to the eye; it is pleasant thought expressed in the speech of the tool.

In the third place, we would have this series put artistic craftsmanship before people as furnishing reasonable occupation for those who would gain a livelihood. Although within the bounds of academic art, the competition, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few per cent. can fairly hope to succeed as painters and sculptors; yet, as artistic craftsmen, there is every probability that nearly every one who would pass through a sufficient period of apprenticeship to workmanship and design would reach a measure of success.

In the blending of handwork and thought in such arts as we propose to deal with, happy careers may be found as far removed from the dreary routine of hack labour, as from the terrible uncertainty of academic art. It is desirable in every way that men of good education should be brought back into the productive crafts: there are more than enough of us "in the city," and it is probable that more consideration will be given in this century than in the last to Design and Workmanship.

W. R. LETHABY.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

It is hoped that this book will help bookbinders and librarians to select sound methods of binding books.

It is intended to supplement and not to supplant workshop training for bookbinders. No one can become a skilled workman by reading text-books, but to a man who has acquired skill and practical experience, a text-book, giving perhaps different methods from those to which he has been accustomed, may be helpful.

My thanks are due to many friends, including the workmen in my workshop, for useful suggestions and other help, and to the Society of Arts for permission to quote from the report of their Special Committee on leather for bookbinding.

I should also like to express my indebtedness to my master, Mr. T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, for it was in his workshop that I learned my craft, and anything that may be of value in this book is due to his influence.

D. C.

_November_ 1901.

CONTENTS

PART I

_BINDING_

PAGE

Editor's Preface 7

Author's Note 11

CHAPTER I

Introduction 17

CHAPTER II

Entering--Books in Sheets--Folding--Collating--Pulling to Pieces--Refolding--Knocking out Joints 33

CHAPTER III

Guarding--Throwing Out--Paring Paper--Soaking off India Proofs--Mounting very Thin Paper--Splitting Paper--Inlaying--Flattening Vellum 53

CHAPTER IV

Sizing--Washing--Mending 67

CHAPTER V

End Papers--Leather Joints--Pressing 80

CHAPTER VI

Trimming Edges before Sewing--Edge Gilding 92

CHAPTER VII

Marking up--Sewing--Materials for Sewing 98

CHAPTER VIII

Fraying out Slips--Glueing up--Rounding and Backing 114

CHAPTER IX

Cutting and Attaching Boards--Cleaning off Back--Pressing 124

CHAPTER X

Cutting in Boards--Gilding and Colouring Edges 139

CHAPTER XI

Headbanding 147

CHAPTER XII

Preparing for Covering--Paring Leather--Covering--Mitring Corners--Filling-in Boards 152

CHAPTER XIII

Library Binding--Binding very Thin Books--Scrap-Books--Binding in Vellum--Books covered with Embroidery 173

CHAPTER XIV

Decoration--Tools--Finishing--Tooling on Vellum--Inlaying on Leather 188

CHAPTER XV

Lettering--Blind Tooling--Heraldic Ornament 215

CHAPTER XVI

Designing for Gold-Tooled Decoration 230

CHAPTER XVII

Pasting down End Papers--Opening Books 254

CHAPTER XVIII

Clasps and Ties--Metal on Bindings 259

CHAPTER XIX

Leather 263

CHAPTER XX

Paper--Pastes--Glue 280

PART II

_CARE OF BOOKS WHEN BOUND_

CHAPTER XXI

Injurious Influences to which Books are Subjected 291

CHAPTER XXII

To Preserve Old Bindings--Re-backing 302

SPECIFICATIONS 307

GLOSSARY 313

REPRODUCTIONS OF BINDINGS (Eight Collotypes) 319

INDEX 337