LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 GIFT OF" 
 
 Class 
 
 
 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/bookbindingsofraOOIethrich 
 
The 
 
 Bookbindings 
 
 of 
 
 Ralph Randolph Adams 
 
 by 
 Arnold Lethwidge 
 
 New York 
 
 Privately Printed 
 
 1904 
 
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T\ B R A #7 
 
 or THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or 
 &ALIFOFM& 
 
RALPH RANDOLPH ADAMS 
 From a pencil sketch by Mrs. Adams 
 
T^HE 
 
 BOOKBINDINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 RALPH RANDOLPH ADAMS 
 
 AN APPRECIATION 
 
 BY 
 
 ARNOLD LETHWIDGE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED 
 
 1904 
 

 THE LITERARY COLLECTOR PRESS 
 GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT 
 
BOOKBINDINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 RALPH RANDOLPH ADAMS 
 
 OOME YEARS AGO Mr. Ralph Randolph Adams, 
 whose bookbindings form the subject of this 
 brief appreciation, bound some books for himself, 
 just for the pleasure he found in the occupation. 
 Soon he found that he could bind a book as well as 
 any professional; so to the enjoyment of making 
 beautiful bindings he presently added the satisfaction 
 of making a living by it. He established himself in 
 the profession of binding books, and has made his 
 way straight to the top. 
 
 He was never content to keep to the paths of the 
 average binder. He could produce as substantial 
 and artistic a tooled binding as the next man, and 
 he took much pride in the quality of his work. His 
 inlaid bindings were carefully done, after the 
 methods of his predecessors and contemporaries. 
 But his energ3 r could not stop at that. He 
 continued to experiment and study, with leathers 
 
 122355 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 and cements and ideas, getting results that were 
 better or worse, learning from successes and failures. 
 He contemplated the experiences of the early binders, 
 in the use of mosaic. In the old cities of Europe — 
 Venice, Vienna, Florence, Paris — in the youthful 
 days of the binder's art, men had attempted in 
 leathers the mosaic that was so universally used in 
 tiles, precious metals and other decorative materials. 
 They fitted together their pieces of leather and so 
 formed designs of much beauty; but soon the paste 
 that joined the pieces would lose its adhesive 
 properties. Then the leather, no longer held in 
 place, would shrink. The joints opened, the edges 
 curled, and the book became as sorry a sight as the 
 hypocritical dame who encountered the magic 
 Mantle of Virtue in the old ballad — 
 
 When she had taken the mantle 
 
 With purpose for to wear, 
 It shrunk up to her shoulder 
 
 And left her back all bare. 
 
 In fact, no one, in those days, seems to have hit 
 upon any process for the preservation of leather 
 mosaic work. So the binders got around that 
 difficulty by putting the book into a full leather 
 binding, then paring other leathers thin, cutting 
 them out with scissors, and veneering the design 
 onto the binding. This "onlaid" process has been 
 used from that day to this, by the best binders and 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 the worst, and is so universally known as " inlay" 
 that one involuntarily connects that term with 
 veneering, rather than with the unused mosaic 
 process. 
 
 The onlaid binding has been developed to its 
 highest possibilities, and the master craftsmen, 
 Trautz-Bauzonnet supreme among them, have made 
 of it a thing of rare beauty and considerable 
 durability. 
 
 Mr. Adams has done, and is doing, some very 
 handsome bindings with onlaid designs. But he has 
 always recognized the shortcomings of the process, — 
 the loss of the grain and rich color in the pared 
 leather, the tendency to curl at the edges, the lack of 
 sinceritjr in the imitation mosaic, — and he has for 
 years experimented to overcome the difficulties which 
 have hitherto prevented the perfection of the process 
 of inlaying. 
 
 After many experiments, trials and failures, he 
 evolved a method by which the most perfect bindings 
 are turned out. These bindings are built up in true 
 mosaic fashion, of bits of leather accurately fitted 
 together; or the leather that covers the book is 
 carved out in patterns with a knife, clean to the 
 board, the cut-out pieces being then replaced by 
 other pieces of the desired color and texture, which 
 exactly fill the vacant spaces, So perfectly do the 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 leathers fit into each other and so firmly are they 
 united that the hot tooling iron can follow the 
 seams, leaving its line of gold but never making a 
 break in the smooth surface. The effect is of an 
 unbroken leather side, till one looks closely and sees 
 that the grain changes as well as the color. The 
 binding on a copy of Swinburne's A Midsummer 
 Holiday is a Moresque mosaic in three shades of 
 blue. A publisher who wished to reproduce this 
 binding in colors, as a- magazine illustration, took 
 the book to a veteran ink-maker. While searching 
 for the proper inks, the expert explained that it 
 would be impossible to reproduce the colors exactly, 
 as the inks would not give the same effect on paper 
 that they had produced on the leather. It was 
 hard to persuade the old ink-maker that the binding 
 was made up of over fifty pieces of leather. A 
 solid leather side printed in three colors was his 
 only idea of the process that produced such an effect. 
 The skeptic may infer that this coherence is a 
 fleeting excellence; that a few years, existence in a 
 steam-heated, gas-lighted library will serve this 
 binding as it did those of the mosaic binders of old 
 But the wear and tear of many years may be 
 concentrated into systematic ill-treatment for as 
 many days. When a book has been scrubbed with 
 a stiff brush, soaked in a pail of water, and baked 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 for hours in an oven, it may be presumed to have 
 passed through Book Purgatory. If there is any 
 thing left of the book, it is certainly on the way to 
 immortality. As a matter of fact, this treatment 
 means ruin and death to the best levant morocco, — 
 such morocco as has survived the hard usage of 
 centuries, on old volumes bound before the discovery 
 of the art of printing, and still preserves its strength 
 and good looks. 
 
 After the drastic treatment described, there is not 
 much left of even such time-ignoring levant as Mr. 
 Adams uses in his bindings and in his tests. But 
 the pattern of the mosaic is still preserved, and the 
 leather has crumbled least at the joints, where by 
 ordinary rules it should first show weakness. From 
 the warped and worthless boards, little walls of 
 cement, holding together some fragments of the 
 leather, still arise, forming a network whereby the 
 bibliopcgic archaeologist may reconstruct the original 
 binding. 
 
 The durability of the genuine mosaic binding 
 having been established, the skeptic is still 
 unconvinced. " What's the use? The onlaid method 
 is easier, cheaper, and plenty good enough. Why a 
 new method?" 
 
 The conservative is usually inclined to let well 
 enough alone; and when he has found a "well 
 
 11 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 enough," it seems the safest thing to do — at least 
 till the new has proved its right to supercede or to 
 live by the side of the old. Between these two 
 methods there is no question of a choice of one that 
 will mean a refusal of the other. Onlaying is as 
 good as it ever was, and in the hands of an artist it 
 is a beautiful and satisfactory method of producing 
 some results. Inlaying by the new method is merely 
 a more beautiful and more satisfactory way of 
 producing, not only the same results, but many 
 others which it has always been conceded were not 
 to be produced by the old method. 
 
 The question of price is one that will usually 
 decide the question of choice of method. Mr. Adams 
 uses every method in which he has found worth — 
 tooling, onlay, inlay, painting, whatever has been 
 proved a substantial and artistic means of 
 beautifying the binding of a book. The foundation 
 work is the same. When the leather covers the 
 book, its purpose of utility is served. The Jansenist 
 binding is the book's Quaker garb, sufficient for all 
 purposes except the satisfaction of the soul's love 
 of beauty. 
 
 In accordance with one's taste in ornament, with 
 the love he has for the book within the binding, and 
 with the length of his purse, will be the style and 
 method of the finishing of the binding. A little 
 
 12 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 tooling, tastefully designed and well done, is all that 
 the ordinarily good book needs. The rank and file, 
 the standard editions, the books for constant 
 reading or reference, are best put into a tailor-made 
 sort of binding, ready for travel or work, but neat 
 and smart in appearance as they stand in rows on 
 the shelves. 
 
 Next in order come the books of one's special 
 collection, the prides of his heart — his large paper, 
 limited editions, handsomely illustrated, aristocrats 
 among books. For these let him select unusual 
 colors and leathers, and add a symbolic design in 
 contrasting colors and elaborate tooling. Here let 
 the old and well-liked onlay serve to make fine these 
 choice volumes which he delights to honor. They 
 may be quiet and elegant, or gayly resplendent, and 
 if his purse fail not too soon he will be able to do 
 the same justice to enough of them to make his 
 special cases a gorgeous show indeed. 
 
 But above all these, every collector possesses at 
 least one " pearl of great price,' ' the book on which 
 he focusses all his love of books. He loves not the 
 others less, but this one more. He thinks of it more 
 than he reads it, doubtless. Perhaps it is not in the 
 least readable, even. But for some good and 
 sufficient reason, it outranks all the rest. He 
 handles it reverently and displays it only to the 
 
 15 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 true and tried. It is of the blood royal, and royal 
 raiment must it wear. Then let him brush aside 
 all the styles and methods of which it can be said, 
 without disparagement either to books or bindings, 
 that they were good enough for the rest, but not for 
 this. For this one book, or for this royal family of 
 books if he is fortunate enough to acquire others 
 that are its peers, only the best will do; and the 
 best, in substantiality and in effectiveness, is a 
 genuine mosaic binding of well-dyed, handsomely- 
 grained leathers of equal thickness, inlaid to the 
 boards and enriched with gold. Here shall no paring 
 knife destroy the grain of the leather. No paste shall 
 show through thin surfaces, dulling the colors. No 
 possibility of curling edges shall be tolerated. All 
 shall be as perfect as the hand of the craftsman can 
 make it, and as the purse of the collector can buy. 
 
 Genuine mosaic will never be as simple a process 
 as that other method so long known as inlay that 
 it is hard to change its name. It will never be as 
 moderate in price, probably never become cheap 
 enough for the collector of limited means to own 
 more than a few examples. That is one of 
 the necessary concomitants of its excellence. The 
 best things are never a free gift, unless of Nature's 
 bestowing, and Nature has bestowed morocco 
 bindings on goats, not on books. 
 
 16 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 A few of the bindings which Mr. Adams has 
 produced in mosaic may well be pictured and 
 described here, as it has not been the fortune of many 
 outside the great art centres to see them. Most of 
 his work has been done to order for private collectors, 
 as Henry W. Poor, J. Pierpont Morgan, Junius S. 
 Morgan, and Gen. Rush C. Hawkins. In the binding 
 exhibitions at Bonaventure's and Scribners', fine 
 specimens have been seen, and some at the Arts and 
 Crafts exhibitions of the smaller cities. 
 
 The binding of the Lyra Elegantiarum, in the 
 library of Mr. Henry W. Poor, is a green levant 
 morocco. A narrow band of blue, inlaid between 
 parallel lines of tooling, forms a frame for an 
 arabesque design of red ribbons connecting six 
 hearts in blue. Golden lyres and butterflies are 
 tooled on the hearts, and there is enough tooling 
 in a delicate flower and leaf design to blend the 
 colors and brighten the whole symbolic design. 
 
 In the design of Grolier lines and ivy leaves and 
 branches, on Matthew Prior's Selected Poems, 
 tooling and mosaic are mutually essential to the 
 carrying out of the design. 
 
 Ballads and Lyrics of Old France displays three 
 purple fleur-de-lis, with the lance-like leaves in green, 
 supporting a white shield bearing the title, laid into 
 a field of turquoise morocco. The tooling is 
 
 19 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 subordinated to the delicate inlay, and the coloring 
 is very effective. On the doublure, passion flowers 
 and leaves are inlaid in an original design. 
 
 In pictorial bindings the mosaic method shows 
 its superiority in the fine effects to be gained by 
 using leathers of different textures. Milton's 
 Paradise Lost is bound in a levant of finest grain, 
 effacing itself in the background. The Tree of 
 Knowledge shows its gnarled and ancient trunk in 
 a heavy, irregular grain, against which the skin of 
 the serpent is clearly defined in a grain of another 
 quality. In the apples and leaves, too, the grain as 
 well as the color characterizes the objects depicted. 
 
 The binding of At the Sign of the Lyre is a 
 pastoral, in all the variegated hues of Nature on a 
 shining summer day. Here Mr. Adams has called 
 in the aid of stains, which color the sky and the 
 flowers, while brown, white, red, and green leathers 
 bear the brunt of the color-scheme. 
 
 One of the finest tooled bindings which the Adams 
 Bindery has turned out is that on Mr. J. Pierpont 
 Morgan's copy of Boccaccio's Life of Dante, which 
 is bound in brown levant with a wide Grolier 
 border, and a central shield, the field being well 
 filled with bands and azured ornaments, all in gold 
 tooling. For elaborate richness the design is 
 unsurpassable. 
 
 20 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 It is surprising how utterly the book-lover is at the 
 mercy of his binder, how dependent upon his honesty 
 and sincerity. It is easy, certainly, to know the 
 work of the unskilled artizan, the apprentice. But 
 if a binder's wit has outgrown his conscience and 
 his industry, how he can shirk the endless inside 
 work that is invisible to the buyer! How he can 
 leave to careless helpers the sewing, the trimming, 
 the handling of rare plates and autographs! How 
 he can manipulate the flimsiest, cheapest leather to 
 make it pose as French levant! How he can juggle 
 with paste and the paring knife and turn out a 
 binding that will look to the amateur, for a time, 
 like the full-levant, inlaid work of art that it is not ! 
 
 It is a delight to turn from some binding such 
 as I have described, to any of Mr. Adams's work, 
 and examine it in detail. These are no weaklings, 
 these handsome volumes. They are made to open 
 and shut, to handle and to read. The same high 
 quality of workmanship and material has been put 
 into every book that leaves the Adams Bindery 
 The steps of the inside work are carefully watched 
 by Mr. Adams. The best materials are supplied to 
 his assistants and nothing but the best workmanship 
 is tolerated. The binding leathers are specially 
 selected and imported, only the strongest and finest 
 qualities being used. The inlaying is done by Mr. 
 
 23 
 
BOOKBINDINGS OF RALPH R. ADAMS 
 
 Adams himself, the assistant finishers have his 
 immediate supervision. 
 
 The cost of the leather — calf, pig-skin, Turkey 
 morocco or French levant — forms one factor 
 in determining the cost of the binding. The 
 elaborateness of the finishing — the tooling, onlay, or 
 mosaic — is another. The foundation work is 
 unvarying in price and quality, always of the same 
 substantial, skilful craftsmanship. 
 
 The designing of book bindings is in itself an art, 
 and is one too often unknown to the binder. Mr. 
 Adams's own good taste in design is supported by 
 the artistic training and taste of his wife. Mrs. 
 Adams is an artist of much talent and education, 
 and her interest in her husband's profession is as 
 great as his own. She collaborates with him 
 constantly in designing bindings, sometimes in 
 accordance with their own ideas, sometimes carrying 
 out the wishes of the owners of the books. A few 
 of the more elaborately bound volumes bear, beneath 
 the gilding of their fore-edges, delicate designs and 
 scenes in water color which are Mrs. Adams's work. 
 
 Mr. Adams is still a young man, and the best of 
 his achievements lie yet before him. He is a 
 thorough American, of pioneer Quaker ancestry, and 
 is entirely worthy of the place he has already made 
 for himself as the representative American bookbinder. 
 
 24