This book is DUE on the last date stamped below JAN 1 "^ 1958 UNWti RN BRANCH, F CALIFORNIA, LIBRARY, BOOKBINDINGS OLD AND NEW «4l4 ^^-..5.t.,.^^.i.,^ I^.^, 7r«f .AlS . -.M- i i t l -^toLrMrf^t. Ill '■l.f .ntlMlnl'iSa i m i t li rfi .ii ija fflli Bookbindings Old and New. 9 protecting cylinder to guard the scrolls of papy- rus on which Vergil, and Horace, and Martial had written their verses. Before the invention of printing, the choicer manuscripts, books of hours, and missals, were made even more valuable by sides of carved ivory, or of delicately wrought silver often studded with gems. Even after printing was invented, the binder was called upon only to stitch the leaves of the book, all further deco- ration being the privilege of the silversmith. Benvenuto Cellini was paid six thousand crowns for the golden cover, carved and enriched with precious stones, which he made for a book that Cardinal de' Medici wished to give Charles V. In France the silversmiths claimed the monop- oly of binding, and also of dealing in the finer stuffs — not merely in cloth-of-gold, but even in velvet. Certain of the books bound in the monasteries were incased in boards — veritable boards, of actual wood — so thick that now and again they were hollowed out to hold a crucifix or a pair of spectacles, although sometimes it was 10 Bookbindings Old and New. only to make room for an almanac. It is no wonder that when a tome thus ponderously begirt fell upon Petrarch it so bruised his leg that for a while there was danger of amputa- tion. Even when these real boards were thin, they were thick enough to conceal a worm, that worst of all the enemies of books ; and thus real boards, like the German condottierl in many an Italian city, destroyed what they were meant to protect. In time the genuine board was given up for a pasteboard, which was then made by pasting together sheets of paper ; and myriads of pages of books no longer in fashion were thus destroyed to stiffen the covers of newer volumes. In our day many interesting fragments of forgotten authors, and not a few curious and instructive engravings, have been rescued from oblivion, when the decay of old book-covers has led to the picking apart of the pasteboards beneath the crumbling leather. With the invention of printing, and the immediate multiplication of books, there came an urgent demand for workmen capable of Bookbindings Old and New. 13 covering a volume in seemly fashion. In many a monastery the binderies must have been in- creased hastily to meet the demand ; and we can trace the handiwork of these monastic craftsmen by the designs they imprinted on the covers of the books they bound — designs made up mainly of motives from the manu- script missals, from the typographic ornaments of ' the early printers, and from the transcripts of those carvings in wood and stone with which the churches of that time were abundantly enriched. But the workshops in the monasteries did not suffice, and leather-workers of all sorts — saddlers, harness-makers, and those who put together the elaborate boots and shoes of the times — were impressed into the service, taking over to the new trade of bookbinding, not only their skill in dealing with leather, but also the tools and the designs with which they had been wont to decorate the boots, the saddles, the harness, and the caskets of fair ladies and lords of high degree. For the most part these were humble artisans, lacking even in the rudi- 14 Bookbindings Old mid New. ments of learning. The authorities in France preferred the workman to be ignorant who was called in to bind the records of the State and the royal books of account. The late Edouard Fournier, in his essay on the " Art de la Reliure en France," cites the contract of one Guillaume Ogier in Italy, 1492, as a binder of the registers of the treasury, in which the artisan " declared and made oath that he knew not how to read nor to write." Perhaps one reason for the superiorit}^ of the early Italian bindings over the French of the same period was that the workmen employed in Italy were more intelligent and better educated. In a book printed by Aldus in 15 13, the notice to the binder is in Greek! Ambroise Firmin-Didot explained the anomaly of this apparently extraordinary culture on the part of the handicraftsmen of that era by sug- gesting that the workmen employed by Aldus — who was binder as well as printer — were many of them Greeks who had been driven to Venice after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. Every reader of " Romola " will Bookbindings Old and New. 1 7 remember the influence exercised on the Italian renascence by the personal presence of the Greeks ; and in no art was this influence more immediate, more permanent, or more beneficial, than in the art of bookbinding. We know that Grolier was in Italy in 15 12, and that he was still at Milan in 1525. He was a friend and a patron of Aldus. " No book left the Aldine press," M. Le Roux de Lincy declares, " without several copies, some on vellum," some on white or coloured paper, being specially printed for the library of the French collector. Voltaire says that " a reader acts toward books as a citizen toward men ; he does not live with all his contemporaries, he chooses a few friends." Grolier chose for his friends the best books and the most beauti- ful ; he was fond of a good author no less than of a wide margin. As Dr. Holmes tells us, a library " is a looking-glass in which the owner's mind is reflected " ; and it is a noble portrait of the man which we get when we look at the books of Jean Grolier. He was a lover of the New Learning. His praises are repeated c 1 8 Bookbindings Old and New. in many a dedication from the scholars and tlie publisher-printers of the period. Many a book was brought out wholly, or partly, at his expense. The managers of the Aldine press often borrowed money from him, and never applied in vain. He quarrelled once with Ben- venuto Cellini, but he was a close friend of Geoff roy Tory. He was a scholar, as is at- tested by the elegant Latinitv of his extant correspondence. He was an artist of not a little skill with the pencil, as a sketch in his copy of the " Maxims '* of Erasmus proves. Fournier thought that perhaps Grolier him- self designed the graceful arabesques and inter- woven bands which characterize the covers of his books. " Compared with the other bindings of the same time, and of the same country, those of Grolier are distinguished by an un- equalled and unfailing taste," They are closely akin to the bindings executed for Aldus in Venice, , and to the bindings then made by the Italian workmen elsewhere in Italy, in France, and even in England : but they are somehow superior ; they have a note of their BENKDF.TTl'S ANATOMY," 1537. OCTAVO, 4X634 INCHES; BROWN CALK, (FROM SAUVAGE COLLECTION. OWNED BY MR. SAMUEL P. AVERY.) 19 Bookbindings Old and New. 2 1 own ; they are the result of a finer artistic sense ; and the longer I study the books bound during the Italian renascence, the more I am inclined to agree with Fournier when he asserts that Grolier, " with Italian methods, created a French art." Certainly he gave to his library so definite an individuality that the volumes which composed it three hundred years ago are now treated as veritable works of art ; they have their catalogue, like the pictures of a great painter, or the plates of a great en- graver; they are numbered. Every existing book bound for Grolier has its pedigree, and is traced lovingly from catalogue to catalogue of the great collectors. The beauty of the Grolier bindings is in the lavish and tasteful ornamentation of the sides. In the early days of printing, and when the traditions of the days of manuscripts still were dominant, the shelves of a library inclined like a reading-desk, and the handsome volumes lay on their sides, taking their ease. Books then were not packed together on level shelves as they are now, shoulder to shoulder, like 22 Bookbindings Old and New. common soldiers ; but each stately tome stood forward by itself singly, like an officer. So the broad sides of the ample folios seemed to invite decoration. The first books which Grolier had bound in Italy are similar in their style of decoration to those then sent forth from the Aldine press ; a few have elegant arabesques, setting off a central shield, but most of them have simple geometrical designs in which interlacing bands, formed by parallel lines gilt-tooled, are relieved by solid ornaments very like those with which the Aldus family then adorned the pages of the books they were printing, and which were suggested some, no doubt, by the illuminations of the old missals, but more, beyond question, by the Oriental traditions of the Greek work- men. The distinguishing quality of these or- naments, familiar enough to all who know the Aldine style, was grace united to boldness. Look at a specimen of the earlier of Grolier's bindings. Note the simplicity of the interlaced bands, the sharp strength of the enriching arabesques, the skill with which they are com- " COLLO(^)UiF.s oi-' I'.KASMrs," i;asI':i,, 1537. ijiAKio, 7 4;; iiMiiKS; i;ko\VN CALF. (FROM BLENHKIM COLLECTION. OWNED 13Y MR. BRAYTON IVES.) 23 Bookbindings Old and New. 25 billed ; and then remember that this, hke every other design, was laboriously tooled bit by bit, and line by line, each separate ornament being stamped on the cover at least twice, once to impress the leather, and again to attach the gold. It is only some understanding of the technic of an art which enables us to appreciate its triumphs. The art of the bookbinder is lim- ited by the " tools " he uses. A " tool," in the parlance of the trade, is the brass implement at the end of which is cut the little device, ornament, or part of an ornament, that is sep- arately to be transferred to the leather. Every figure, every leaf, every branch, every part of the desio^n, is made of one or more tools. The binder conceives his general scheme of decoration, knowing his tools ; and it is by a Combination and repetition of these tools that he forms his design. One might almost say that tools are style ; certainly it is obvious that the tools changed form concurrently with every modification of taste in bookbinding ; and a study of the tools, as they have been modified 26 Bookbindings Old and New. ii during tlic past three centuries, is essential to any real understanding of the art of book- binding. Thus we see that when Grolier becran to Qrather his library, the binder used tools copied from Aldine typographic devices, and impressed in gold on the cover of a book that figure which on the printed page was a solid black. But the finer taste of the Renascence soon discov- ered that, although the broad black of the Aldine devices was pleasing on a white page, an excess of solid gold was less satisfactory on the side of a book. So they made these tools sometimes hollowed, — that is, in outline merely, which lightened them instantly, — and some- times azured — that is, crossed by horizontal lines, as in the manner of indicating " azure " in heraldrv. Then, havino- the same device in three different values where before thev had but one, the adroit binder was able to vary and combine them as he needed solid strength or easy lightness. The next step was to increase the variety and the complication of the interlacing bands " ERIZZO, DISCORSO SOPRA LE MOUAGLIE ANTICHE," VENICE, 1559. IN 8VO (IMPRIMIS EXPOSITION, NO. 526. PLAT RECTO). KOUND EOR GROLIER IN THE STYLE OF THOSE OF GEOFFROY TORY. It is the only example known of work of this class bearing the name of Grolier. The device is on the vorso. (From " Lcs Reliures d'Art A la Biblio- thtque Nationale." By permission of Edouard Rouvcyrc.) 27 Bookbindings Old and New. 29 — and it is these interlacing bands which are perhaps the chief characteristic of the Grolier bindings. Instead of being indicated by two fine Hnes of gold, the bands were marked out by three lines. Finally, the bands traced by plain gold tooling were enriched by paint. Adroitly contrasted colours were chosen to fill ALUINE TOOLS, HOLLOW. ALDINE TOOLS, AZURED. up the hollow bands which twisted above and below one another all over the cover of the book. To-day these painted ribbons and the gilding of the design are sadly dulled by the years; but when they were fresh, nothing could have been more magnificently resplendent than this polychromatic decoration. 30 Booldiiiidings Old and New. On one or the other side of Grolier's books was the leoend " lo. Grolierii et amicorurn," a form which M. Le Roux de Lincy thinks he may have borrowed from his friend Mai'oH, an ItaHan collector, of whom almost nothing is known, although his books are greatly sought after — Grolier had several of them. M. Cle- ment de Ris, the author of a pleasant volume on the " Amateurs d'Autrefois," doubts whether Grolier ever lent his books, despite this altru- istic declaration. But M. Le Roux de Lincy has been able to trace not a few duplicates and triplicates from Grolier's collection, — he has even found five copies of the same Aldine edition of Vergil, — whence it is fair to con- clude that the book-lover meant the legend to be interpreted in the most liberal manner, in that he stood ready to give his books to his friends, even though he was not willing to lend them. Indeed, to lend a beloved volume is the last thing a true bibliophile can be coaxed to do, althousih the lendino; of books was a form of charity specially recommended by a Council of Paris so far back as 12 12. We know that BINDING EXECUTED FOR THO. MAlOLI, 1536. (FROM " MANUEL HIS- TORIQUE ET BII3LIOGRAPHIQUE DE L'AMATEUR DE RELIURE." BY PER- MISSION OF L£0N GRUEL.) 31 Bookbindings Old and New. 33 Grolier gave four of the best of his books to the father of J. A. cle Thou. The books bound for Maioh are almost as beautiful as the books bound for Grolier, but, as M. Marius-Michel remarks, Maioli had some poor bindings, and Grolier had none. Perhaps it was also due to the example of Maioli that Grolier chose a motto, which ran, " Portio mea, Domine, sit in terra viventium," modified from Psalm cxli. Maioli's was, " Ini- mici mea michi, non me michi." Marc Laurin of Watervliet, a friend of Grolier and of Maioli, and a book-lover like them, had for his motto " Virtus in arduo." In as marked a contrast as may be with the friendly legend on Gro- lier's books is the motto which the learned Scaliger borrowed from the Vulgate, *' Ite ad vendentes " — "Go ye rather to them that sell" (Matthew xxv. 9). __ Prefixed to the " Catalogue of an Exhibi- tion of Recent Bookbindings, i860- 1890," held at the Grolier Club in New York in Decem- ber, 1890, was a note on styles, in which there 34 Bookbindings Old and A'Cio. was a dixision of the best known work of the Renascence into three classes, rather arbitra- rily designated as " Aldine or Italian," " Maioli," and " Grolier." The Aldine was said to have ornaments of solid face without any shading whatever, and these ornaments were of Arabic origin, and such as were used by Aldus and the other early Italian printers ; the Maioli was said to be composed generally " of a frame- work of shields or medallions, with a design of scrollwork flowing through it " ; and the Grolier was said to be " an interlaced framework of geo- metrical figures, circles, squares, and diamonds, with scrollwork running through it, the orna- ments of which are of Moresque character, and often azured." Of course, a classification of this sort is lacking in scientific precision, since all three of these styles existed at the same time, and are to be found on books bound for Grolier, although there is no doubt that he most often affected the interlacing geometrical patterns. That three styles different enough to bear dis- tinct names should flourish side by side is evi- ITALIAN, i6TH century. 35 Bookbindings Old and New. 37 dence, were any needed, of the extraordinary artistic richness of the Itahan renascence. Nor is this the whole story. While Grolier and his fellow-collectors were developing a French art in Italy, and with Italian workmen, the art was taking root in France, and flourishing lustily. Born in the reign of Louis XII., Grolier died in the reign of Charles IX., and he was a witness of the sturdy development of art in France under Francis I. and Henry II. While he was having books bound in one or another of the three con- temporary styles of Italian origin, two styles were in process of evolution a in France, without his ^5 assistance, and perhaps JIL ^^Bl JIj^ without his approval. ^ ^^ ^ Certainly there is now ^ JjL -,■-% .■'i^. .T^-'X'i Ct'.^;", /-^fri »^:-. ^'^ BINDING EXECUTED BY CLOVIS feVE FOR LOUIS XIII. (FROM " MANUEL HISTORIQUE ET BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE DE L'AMATEUR DE RELIURE." BY PERMISSION OF LEON GRUEL.) 39 1 " PANDECTARUxM JURIS FLORENTINI, VOL. II." BINDING WITH THE ARMS OF FRANCE SURROUNDED WITH SCROLLS, AND WITH THE CIPHER OF HENRY II. AND LMANA OF POITIERS. IN THE MAZARIN LIBRARY. (FROM " LA RELIURE FRANCAISE," BY M. MARIUS-MICHEL. BY PERMISSION OF DAMASCENE MORGAND.) Bookbindings Old and New. 43 ware, for which the lover of ceramic art longs in vain, has not a rarer charm than that of some of the bindings executed at the same time and under the same inspiration. M. Marius-Michel, bringing to the study a highly trained under- standing of the technic of bibliopegic art, declares that there were in France under Henry II. three, and perhaps four, binders of extraordinary merit. Their work survives to this day, and is more and more admired, but their names have perished forever. It is a pity that we cannot do honour to the memory of the noble craftsman who executed some of the most splendid bindings with no other implements than the straight ^^*^ fillet and curved gouge, disdaining ^^^WV aid of any engraved tools whatso- ^\^ ever. To him we owe the trans- curved gouges. cendent folio " Pandectarum Juris Florentini," now in the Mazarin Library at Paris. M. Ma- rius-Michel asserts that no binder had ever such skill of hand. " As clay is transformed under the fingers of the clever sculptor, so the 44 Bookhindiiigs Old and New. learned arabesques, the graceful volutes, seemed to be born under his instruments ; no one has ever carried to such a degree the exquisite sen- timent of form." "VALERII MAXIMI DICTORUM FACTORUMQUE MEMORABILIUM, LIBRI IX." BOUND BY NICOLAS EVE. FROM THE LIBRARY OF DE THOU. (FROM "REMARKABLE BINDINGS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM," BY HENRY B. WHEATLEY.) 45 II. DE THOU AND " LE GASCON." In the history of the bibhopegic art the names of book-lovers and of bookbinders are inextricably entangled. At one moment the dom- inant individuality is seen to be a collector like Grolier or Mai'oli, and at the next it is an artist- artisan like " Le Gascon" or Derome. After the death of Henry II., the great binders of his reign disappear absolutely; there is no trace of their handiwork or of their tools. Perhaps they were Huguenots, as French historians of the art have surmised, and were done to death, or fled the country, before the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes in 1598. Whatever their fate, the tradition was broken, and the art of bookbinding developed on other lines than theirs ; and the personality which next comes into view is that of a collector — Jacques Auguste De Thou. 47 48 Boo/dujidings Old and New. When Grolier was in clanger of his Hfe De Thou's father saved him, and Grolier gave the elder De Thou four of the best books of his library. The son was then only nine years old, but perhaps this was the beginning of his love for books — a sacred fire which thus passed from Grolierius to Thuanus by a sort of apos-" tolic succession. Born in 1553, De Thou trav- elled from 1573 to 1582, paying a visit in 1576 to Plantin. In 1593 he was appointed to the custody of the books of the king, Henry IV., succeeding Jacques Amyot, the translator of Plutarch's " Lives," and of the " Daphnis et Chloe " of Longus. In his new post De Thou was able to save for the nation the library of Catherine de' Medici. Swift characteristically tells us that " some know books as they do lords ; learn their titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaintance ; " and there are always book-collectors of this sort. But De Thou was a book-lover of another kind ; he knew his books, he used them well, he lived with them ; and to-day he lives by the fame they have given him, since he died in BINDING EXECUTED BY NICOLAS EVE, I578. (FROM " MANUEL lUSTO- RIQUE ET BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE DE L'AMATEUR DE RELIURE." BY PERMIS- SION OF LEON GRUEL.) 51 Bookbindings Old and New. 53 161 7. It is the love of books which has saved his name from oblivion, as M. Clement de Ris declares in his pleasant gossip about the " Amateurs d'Autrefois." " Distinguished mag- istrate, remarkable writer, historian of rare merit, statesman of exceptional common sense and of great foresight, what survives is the bibliophile. Who remembers that he took part in the ab- juring of Henry IV., or that he was one of the most active negotiators of the Edict of Nantes t No one. Who reads the ' History of his Time ' } — ' that grand and faithful history,' as Bossuet called it. Again, no one. But ask any petty dealer in second-hand books what the emblem was with which he marked his books. He will answer you without the error of a letter. A collector, if he have but an elevated taste, is moved by respect for the past ; he seeks the driftwood of time which the present despises. The future pays the debt of the past " — and hands the collector's name down to posterity. It was towards the end of the reign of Charles IX., after the death of Grolier (1565), that we 54 Bookbindings Old and New. find the first specimens of a new style. The side of a book was now covered by a framework of small compartments formed by double- filleted bands. At first these com- partments were empty, and Henry III. added to the barren severity of the de- sign by filling the central space with a stamp representing the crucifixion. As Henry H. put the bow and arrows and triple crescents of the ^>:ij^ i4r4^ unchaste Diana on -^^^i^^W^ the royal bindings, so ™'^ "^''"^ branches. the sombre Henry HI., taking life sadly because of his lost love, Mary of Cleves, was fond also of a powder of tears and of death's heads scattered through the lilies of France. So solemn a style of decoration did not tempt his sister, Mar- earet of Valois, afterward known as TOOLS USED Queen Margot, and she preferred a pow- iN THE J £ ii-jarcTuerites, each flower being " FAN- ^ ^ FARES." framed in an oblong wreath. For her, also, the cold austerity of the geo- metrically distributed compartments was done F; EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TOOLS. SS Bookbindings Old and New. It is not a treatise on bookbinding that I have here attempted, or a history of the art, or even a set and formal essay. All I have sought to do is to jot down a few stray notes — to gossip about those who have helped to make the Book Beautiful. What I have tried to show in my rambling paragraphs, and in the illustrations chosen to accompany them, is the sequence of styles, and the way one style was evolved from another, and their relations one to the other. At first we find almost simultaneously the Aldine and the Mai'oli, the Grolier and the Henry II., styles. Then followed the powder (which probably suggested the wreaths), the fan- fares of the Eves, and the brilliant fantasies of " Le Gascon." Finally came Padeloup with his polychromatic mosaics (some of them deriv- ing their monotonous framework from the wreaths and the powder), and Derome with his vigorous borders. And as I wandered down the history of bookbinding, I have tried to show that the key to any understanding of the suc- ceeding styles is to be found in a study of the tools of each epoch. Bookbindings Old and New. 89 That the names of the gifted bookbinders and devoted book-lovers which came to the end of my pen in the course of my stroll down the vista of bibliopegy were nearly all French is not wil- ful on my part, but inevitable. The art of book- binding was cradled in France, even if it was born elsewhere, and in France it grew to matu- rity. Italy shared the struggle with France in the beginning, but soon fell behind exhausted. Germany invented the book-plate to paste inside a volume, in default of the skill so to adorn the volume externally that no man should doubt its ownership. England has had but one binder — Roger Payne — that even the insular enthu- siasm of his compatriots would dare to set beside the galaxy of bibliopegic stars of France. The supremacy of the French in the history of this art is shown in the catalogues of every great book-sale and of every great library ; the gems of the collection are sure to be the work of one or another of the Frenchmen to whose unrivalled attainments I have once more called attention in these pages. It is revealed yet again by a comparison of the illustrations in the many his- 90 Bookbindings Old and New. torical accounts of the art, French and German, British and American ; nearly nine-tenths of the bindings chosen for reproduction are French. And, after enjoying these, we are often led to wonder why a misplaced patriotism was blind enough to expose the other tenth to a damaging comparison. These remarks, of course, apply only to the binders whose work was done before the beginning of the nineteenth century. Of late years the superiority of French binders has been undisputable, but it has not been over- whelming. There are at present in Great Britain and in the United States binders whom no one has a right to pass over in silence, and about whom I shall gossip again in this vol- ume ; but in the past it was France first and the rest nowhere. ENGLISH, iSTH CENTURY. ROGER PAYNE. 91 BOOKBINDINGS OF THE PRESENT. BOOKBINDINGS OF THE PRESENT. I. THE TECHNIC OF THE CRAFT. . As there is unfortunately no word in the EngHsh language to describe those familiar, yet dignified, poems which in France are known as vers dc societe, and which are far above ordinary " society verse," and as there is no single term to denote the short-story, the form of fiction in which we Americans have been most abun- dant and successful, so also is there need in English of a recognized phrase for the defining each of the two halves of bibliopegic art. Book- binding consists of two wholly distinct opera- tions, known to the expert as "forwarding" and " finishing." Forwarding is the proper prepara- tion of a book for its cover and the putting on 95 96 Bookbindings Old and New. of that cover ; finishing is the decoration of the sides and back of the book after it has been covered. Forwarding, therefore, is the task of an artisan, while finishing must be the work of an artist. Mr. WilHam Matthews, than whom there is no one more competent to express an opinion, has declared that " a book, when neatly and cleanly covered, is in a very satisfactory condi- tion without any finishing or decorating." Many book-lovers agree wdth the foremost of Ameri- can bookbinders, and order their precious vol- umes to be soberly clad in plain morocco. The Jansenist binding, as it is called after the leader of the recluses of Port-Royal, calls for the maxi- mum of care in the forwarding, and the mini- mum of gilding or other decoration ' of the finisher. Mr. Matthews went even further, — I quote from his lecture on " Bookbinding Practically Considered," delivered before the Grolier Club of New York in 1885, and by the club printed in 1889, — and having described the succes- sive steps by which a book is prepared, for- Bookbindings Old and New. 97 warded, and covered with leather, said : " I now declare the book in this condition is bound, and he w4io has skilfully mastered these various processes through which a volume has passed deserves the name of binder; he who is called upon to decorate it, finisher. At present the custom is the reverse : the finisher or decorator is credited with being the binder, whereas he has done none of the binding." Now, there is no doubt that the protest of this accomplished craftsman is well founded. But the error is so old that there is no hope of uprooting it at this late day. When we speak of a book as beautifully bound, we are praising the work of the man who designed and exe- cuted the decoration of the cover, not the labour of the man who clothed the book with leather, and who bbviously enough was really its binder. Of course, in a great many instances forwarder and finisher are one and the same person. Per- haps this was the case with the books which are catalogued as " bound by Le Gascon," although it is as a finisher that "Le Gascon " is unrivalled, and certainly it is the case with the books 98 Bookbindings Old and New. bound by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, who himself attends to every detail of preparing and for- warding, aided only by his wife. The French term for "finisher" is "gilder," and, in his account of French bookbinding, M. Marius- Michel, a dorciw himself, is very careful to give credit for a delicate decoration to the special artist who designed and gilded it. It is greatly to be regretted that there is in popular use only one word to designate the two distinct opera- tions. Although these notes on the art of book- binding as it is practised to-day have to do with the work of the finisher — the artist who adorns the exterior of a volume, and not with the more humble, but not less important, labour of the forwarder — the artisan who prepares it for decoration, it may not be amiss to begin by setting forth the series of operations a book undergoes at the hands first of the forwarder, and then of the finisher ; and in this explana- tion of technical processes I shall follow two masters of the bibliopegic art, Mr. William Matthews, from whose lecture before the Gro- "HISTORY, THEORY, AND PRACTICE OF ILLUMINATING." DIGKY WYATT, LONDON, 1861. Bound by Zaehnsdorf. Crimson morocco, wide borders, inlaid with varie- gated leathers in a scroll pattern, bold in design ; lined with dark green morocco with red border, the whole ornamented with vines and flowers. Owned by Mr. Samuel P. Avery. 99 Bookbindings Old and New. loi lier Club I have already quoted, and Mr. Joseph W. Zaehnsdorf, whose handbook of " The Art of Bookbinding " came forth in a second edition in 1S90. Every book-lover should understand the principles of the art of the bookbinder, and the practices of the craft ; appreciation is best founded on knowledge. Often a volume comes into the hands of the binder already bound. The books of American publishers are issued in substantial cloth covers intended to be permament. The bindings of British publishers are frequently more tempo- rary, and the book is loosely cased in the cloth cover, the owner being expected to rebind in leather an}^ volume which he deems worthy of preservation. The books of French publishers are issued in paper covers, merely stitched, and so are most of those of the- German publishers ; as Lord Houghton recorded on one of his early visits, " Jn Germany all the books are in sheets and all the beds without." The first thing the binder has to do if the book is already bound is to remove the cloth cover, and then very carefully to collate the I02 Bookbindings Old and New. \'olume page by page, to see if title, preface, table of contents, list of illustrations, notes, index, maps, plates, are each and all per- fect and in place. If need be, the sheets are refolded so as to make the pages true ; then the}^ are beaten by hand, or rolled in a press, which is a more hurried method, and by far less workmanlike ; the beating being to com- pact the pages, and to give the book solidity and strength. After the beating, the loose maps and illustrations, mounted on linen guards, are inserted in their proper places. Then the sheets are sewn to the bands, and generally there should be no saw-cuts in the back of the book, and the sewing should not be " sunk- band," as it is called, but " raised-band," and as flexible as it is firm. The volume is now prepared for the for- warder, who carries on the work to the point where it is ready for the finisher. The for- warder attaches the end-papers ; he glues the back of the book, and rounds it ; he squares the niill boards which are to serve as the sides of the book, and he laces them in by means of the Bookbindings Old and New. 103 bands to which the sheets have been sewn. The forwarder needs a steady hand, and, above all things, a true eye — " the important principle to be observed in forwarding is triteness. The form and shape of the book depend on the forwarder" (Matthews, p. 35). 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 stand- ing 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 mar- bling, to the added richness of the work. The back is then lined, and, when the binder is con- scientious, 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 1 04 Bookbindings Old and New. 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 practises, and the chief limitation of the artist who decorates a book is that the desio-n 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. Cobden- Sanderson once told me of the difficulty he has had in getting cut such tools as he needed. Bookbindings Old and New. 1 05 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 A BINDING BY COBDEN-SANDERSON. 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 io6 BookbindiJio-s Old and New i> a festoon cut all in a single piece, preferring to impress every leaf separately. M. Marius- Michel 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 o'ouges for the curves and circles ; and these were all that Gilson used in the finish- ing 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. The process of working a design in the best manner is very tedious, so Mr. Matthews tes- tifies, " more so than even connoisseurs imag- ine. First the design is made on paper, then impressed with the tools through the paper on to the leather ; then the paper is removed, and the design again gone over with the tools to make the impression sharp and clear" — the leather being slightly moistened and the tools being moderately heated. " Then, after wash- ing, sizing, and laying on the gold leaf, the Bookbindings Old and New. 107 design is gone over for the fourth time before one side of the cover is completed. This, hav- ing to be repeated on the other side of the volume, and the back also tooled, will afford some idea of the labour in executing the finest hand-tooling." Often the inside of the covers is also lined with leather, and as carefully ornamented. Often certain figures in the pattern are excised, and the spaces filled with leathers of a different colour; and this polychromatic decoration is known as inlaying, or illuminating. The fin- isher needs to have delicacy of taste and nicety of touch ; he must have a fancy to invent beautiful desio^ns, and a firm hand to execute them ; and he must not expect wide fame, much real appreciation, or high pay. It is no wonder, therefore, that accomplished finishers are very few. Mr. Quaritch, in his catalogue of bookbindings, speaks of the late Francis Bedford as the best binder who ever lived. The best forwarder, he may have been, but he was not a finisher himself, and he never had a first-class finisher in his employ. Mr. io8 Bookbindings Old and New. Matthews asserted that tliere were not more than six finishers in New York "who can even work any intricate pattern with fair abiHty. In London I question if the number is greater in proportion to the population ; and in Paris, where the art flourishes most, where the patron- age is encourao^ino", and the workmen have superior advantages, I doubt if the number of finishers quaHfied to work intricate designs in first-ckiss manner exceeds twenty." Any one who was fortunate enougli to see the Exhibition of Recent Bookbindings, 1860- 18S0, at the GroHer Ckib in the last days of 1890, or who will take the trouble to turn the pages of M. Octave Uzanne's " La Reliure Moderne," must confess that there are very few finishers of our time who have originality of invention, freshness of composition, or individu- ality of taste. But a comparison of the best bound books of this century with those of the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries — which are the golden ages of bibliopegy, for " Le Gascon " lived in one, and Grolier in the other — will show that the work of our time is technically tJ-77 j %,! ^:/ ^ ) -^ ) ^^ d 'it J .^ ) :>jl -^y^/^/; - 7 ^7 ^f #rJ'' ^'J^ -^f '«?:/■ J 7 :4 4 S 4 4 4 4^' ^ ■ " AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE." LONDON, 1886. Bound by Ruban. Garnet morocco. Owned by Mr. George B, De Forest. 109 Bookbindings Old and New. 1 1 1 far better than any which has come clown to us from our ancestors. Tliere is better forward- ins: ^ncl better finishino:. In the sold-toohno- especially the modern workman is incomparably neater, cleaner, more exact, more conscientious, than his predecessor : the tooling of the men who bound for Grolier is to our eye inexcusably careless ; clumsy irregularities mar the symme- try of the most ■ beautifully designed arabesques, ill-balanced lines overrun their limits, and ends are left hanging out with reckless slovenliness. The superiority of the elder binders in their incomparable fertility of conception must not blind us to the fact that in care, in thorough- ness, and in other workman-like qualities, they bear a most obvious inferiority to binders of later years who have not a tithe of their ability. Probably the same state of affairs exists in other arts. I remember that in 1867, when I was but a boy, I had a chat in Naples with Signor Castellani, the antiquary and goldsmith about the fluctuations of the art of the silver- smith. He told me that he had more than one workman then in his shop of greater skill than 1 1 2 Bookbindings Old and New. Benvenuto Cellini, of a more certain handicraft. These workmen could reproduce any of Cellini's legacies to posterity, little masterpieces of gold- smithery and enamelling, and they would make a better job of it than the great Italian ; for the modern imitations would show a finer tech- nical skill than Cellini's, and reveal fewer defects and blunders and accidents than the marvellous originals. But copy as accurately as they might, the modern workmen were wholly incapable of originating anything. In Cellini there was a union of the head and the hand, of the artist and of the artisan, while in Castellani's men the hand had gained skill, but the head had lost its force. The handicraft had improved, and the art had declined. There were now very expert artisans, but there was no indis- putably gifted artist. In solidity of workmanship and in dexterity of handicraft, the art of the binder has advanced in this centurv ; but not in desisfn. The finish- ers of our time can repeat all the great artists of the past, but they cannot rival them in in- vention, in fantasv, in freshness, and in charm. "3 Bookbindings Old and New. 1 1 5 To say this is not to assert that the art is in its decadence, or even that it is in any way going backward ; but that it is not going forward one mio^ht venture to hint. The nineteenth cen- tury is now in its last decade, and it has not yet developed a style of its own in bookbinding — if it has in any other of the decorative arts. The men who bound for Grolier and Henry II. lived in the sixteenth century ; the Eves and " Le Gascon " lived in the seventeenth ; and even in the eighteenth century there was Derome, with his lacework borders borrowed from, or at least inspired by, the graceful wrought-iron work of the contemporary French smiths. But the most beautiful bindings of the nineteenth cen- tury are in the main imitations of those of the centuries preceding. Often the style is a doubt- ful and tasteless eclectic, perhaps not unfairly to be stigmatized as bastard and mongrel. There is hardly to be detected even a vague effort after a style. Sometimes imitation de- velops into adaptation, and a new style is evolved slowly out of combinations and modifi- cations; but in the art of binding we have not 1 1 6 Bookbindings Old and New. seen many signs of any such process now going on. Almost the only external influence which has been allowed to affect the accepted formulas is the Japanese; and the example of these sur- passingly adroit decorative artists has not been sufficient to destroy the sterility from which the art of bookbinding is suffering. Its effect, at most, has been to increase the freedom of drawing, and to encourage a more realistic treatment of natural objects. The art of bookbinding has always been claimed by the French as peculiarly theirs, and it is not easy to deny the justice of the demand. Perhaps the position in which the art has found itself during the most of this century is due to the French Revolution, in the course of which, and of the long wars that ensued, the demand for fine work ceased abruptly. The trained workmen died off, the shops were broken up, and the tools were scattered and lost. Even the traditions of the art disappeared — and in every art which is also a trade the traditions represent the acquired force, the impetus. When the Empire came after the Consulate, Bookbindings Old and New. 1 1 7 and Napoleon wished to pose as the patron of the arts, bookbinding was dead in France. " I doubt if you could find anything more ugly than the books bound for Napoleon I., for Louis XVIII,, for Louis Philippe," once de- clared M. Auguste Laugel, in a letter to the " Nation." As it happened, the art which had been highest in France, and had then sunk lowest, had kept its humble level in England, and at the end of the last century had even had its only successful effort at originality there. The greatest name in the history of bookbinding in Great Britain is that of Roger Payne, an honest and thorouoh workman of some taste, and with a certain elementary appreciation of design. " His efforts were always original, never copied," and this is a very rare compliment to pay to a British bookbinder; and it is to this originality, as Mr. Matthews suggests, rather than to any great excellence in his designs, that he owes the exaggerated esteem in which he is held in England. When Matthew Arnold once said to Sainte-Beuve that he did not think Lamartine 1 1 8 Bookbindings Old and New. very important as a poet, the French critic replied, "He is important to us"; and so it is with Roger Payne — he is important to the British. If he is mentioned at all in French books, his name is usually given incorrectly. Lewis was the leading English binder early in this century, in Dr. Dibdin's day. Perhaps it was owing to the influence of Dibdin, some of whose rhapsodical writing was translated into French, that the Parisian book-lovers began to send their precious volumes across the Channel to be bound in London. Thus the tradition of Roger Payne, the most original binder the British had ever had, helped to revive the tradi- tions of the French binders, who soon surpassed again their British rivals, just as it was a fol- lower of Bewick who revealed to the French the possibilities of the art of wood-engraving, in which the French have also become superior to the British. II. THE BINDERS OF TO-DAY. Whether the vivifying spark was borrowed from Great Britain, or whether it was brought from Germany by Traiitz, the French binders soon recovered their former supremacy. Trautz is still the strongest individuality among the French bookbinders of this century, and his influence is still perceptible, though he died in 1879. He is the foremost binder of the nine- teenth century, and in his influence we can per- haps detect the foundation of a school, or at least of something more than merely individual, solitary, unaided struggle toward the unknown. At once forwarder and finisher, overseeing every operation of his craft, Trautz led the reform of bookbindino^ in France. He frowned upon all haste and on all labour-saving devices. He never stinted time or care or hard work. He did his best always. He gave to the vol- 119 120 Bookbindings Old and New. umes which left his hands greater firmness, flexibility, and solidity than any other binder had ever before attempted. He caused a host of new tools to be cut, modelled on those of " Le Gascon " and Derome and Padeloup. He studied the works of these masters reverently and unceasingly, seeking to spy out the secrets of their art. He followed in their footsteps, but although he modelled himself upon them, he never copied, trying rather to imbue himself with their spirit, and to carry forward their methods to a finer perfection, " I do not think that Trautz ever made the same binding twice ; there is on every book coming out of his hands something personal, something original," M. Laugel wrote in 1S79. " This man, who could make any amount of money by merely putting his name on books, is so conscientious that he only turns out every year about two hundred volumes ; he has only three workmen or workwomen ; he does the drawing of ornaments and gilding himself. For those who have not seen Trautz or Thibaron (the pupil of Trautz) at work, it is almost impos- Bookbindings Old and New. 1 2 1 sible to imagine how much pains must be taken for one volume." Nothing that Trautz under- took cost more pains than his mosaics ; in the two-score years from 1838 to 1878 he attempted only twenty-two of them, and of these four are now owned by New York collectors. They show, perhaps, the most originality of any of his bindings, and they reveal his characteristics most abundantly. They have the pure beauty of design which we look for in every work of decorative art, wrought with the utmost deft- ness and delicacy of handicraft. Of the supremacy of the French in the art of bookbinding since Trautz led them back into the true path, no better evidence can there be than the index of binders represented prefixed to the catalogue of the Grolier Club Exhibition of Recent Bookbindings. New York is perhaps the most cosmopolitan of all the great cities of the nineteenth century, especially in all matters pertaining to art; and the taste of its collectors is eclectic in the best sense of that much-abused term. Of the fifty-one binders whose handi- work was exhibited at the Grolier, thirty-six 1 22 Bookbindmgs Old and New. lived in Paris, one at Lyons, one at Brussels, six in London, five in New York, one in Phila- delphia, and one in Quebec. The artistic supe- riority of the French bindings shown at the Grolier was almost as marked as the numerical ; of the score of bindings finest in conception and in execution, three-fourths at least were the product of Parisian workshops. There were not a few also which had come from these same shops, which were as bad as the worst which had been turned out in New York or London — misbegotten horrors of leather, "whom Satan hath bound," if it is permissible to borrow a scriptural quotation from that learned book-lover, the late Henry Stevens of Vermont. But the very best of M M. Cape, Cuzin, Chambolle-Duru, De Samblancx, Gruel and Engelmann, Joly, Lortic, Marius-Michel, Nied- ree, Quinet, and Ruban, attains a very high standard of excellence. Now and again, no doubt, we find a French binder who has sac- rificed forwarding to finishing, having made his book so solid and so stiff that it can A BINDING BY FRANCISQUE CUZIN. 123 Bookbindings Old and New. 1 25 scarcely be opened, and so compacted that if it is opened unwarily the back is broken beyond repair. Books I have seen fresh from the hands of a Parisian binder as brilliant as a jewel- casket, and as hard to open as a safe-deposit vault when you have forgotten the combination. The relatively high position held by the binders of Great Britain was momentary only, and at best it was due to the temporary deca- dence of the craft in France. Of late years, at least, bookbinding has shared the misfortune of most of the other fine arts in England, and has lingered in a condition only less lament- able than that of sculpture and painting because it contented itself chiefly with dull and honest imitation of the dead-and-gone masters. Every artist must needs serve his apprenticeship and follow in the footsteps of a teacher, but where Trautz, for example, sought inspiration only, Bedford and the other British binders found models which they copied slavishly. The work- manship of the bindings that left their shops was honest and thorough, but the decoration was lifeless and colourless. The British artisan 1 26 Bookbindings Old and New. forwarded conscientiously, but the finishing of the British artist was sadly to seek. How inert the art of bookbinding was in England during nearly four-score years can be seen by glancing over the " Catalogue of Fif- teen Hundred Books remarkable for the Beauty or the Age of their Bindings" issued by Mr. Quaritch in 1888. Here the curious inquirer will find, under numbers 1 325-1 345, a score of books bound by Francis Bedford, whom Mr. Quaritch declares to be the best binder who ever lived — meaning thereby, no doubt, the best forwarder; and every one of these books is finished in imitation of some French binder. Nos. 1325 and 1326 are "bound in imitation of Derome le jeune," the catalogue declares frankly, in apparent unconsciousness of the hopelessly inartistic position to which this confession assigns the British craftsman. No. 1327 is "in imitation of Padeloup." No. 1328 is "bound in imitation of the work of Hardy-Dumennil," a French binder not of the highest esteem among book-lovers. Nos. 1329, ^l3^-> ^ZZ^-i '^^cl 1339 are copied from Trautz. Bookbindings Old and New. 127 Nos. 1334, 1335, and 1345 are "bound in imi- tation of Chambolle-Duru." This artistic sterility was probably due to XSSOESBBSPi : ilx*.'.-.-: " THE STORY OF SIGURD THE VOLSUNG AND THE FALL OF THE NIBLUNGS." Size, 7% in. X sJ^ in. Bound by Cobden-Sanderson. the lack of intelligent patronage, and the slug- gishness of the book-lover is responsible for this disheartening result. But the custom seems 1 28 Bookbmdings Old and New. to obtain even in the present day, if one may accept as evidence the second edition of Mr. Zaehnsdorf s " The Art of Bookbindinor." In "ATALANTA IN CALYDOX." Size, ^Vi in. X dVt in. Bound by Cobdeu-Sanderson. this practical guide to his art, the author, a bookbinder himself and the son of a bookbinder, gives plates of typiceJ covers of the chief styles; Bookbindings Old and New. 129 and these are not genuine specimens bound for Grolier or by " Le Gascon." They are appar- ently Mr. Zaehnsdorf's own handiwork ; cer- tainly the plate called " Gascon " {sic) cannot be the work of the great Frenchman, because the book is one first published perhaps two hun- dred years after his death. Here we discover a conscientious craftsman not only content to be a humble imitator, but so deficient in any appreciation of originality that he sees no difference between the model of his master and his own second-hand copy. And yet Francis Bedford was capable of original work, simple always, but with a quiet dignity of its own. Mr. Zaehnsdorf is an accomplished workman, able to send from his shop books dressed with propriety, and, at times, not without individuality. Mr. Roger de Coverly is another British binder whose labours are liked by book-lovers. The most original figure among the English binders of this cen- tury — in fact, the only original figure since Roger Payne — is Mr. Cobden-Sanderson. Mr. Cobden-Sanderson is one of the most 130 Bookbindings Old and New. characteristic personalities in the strange strug- gle for artistic freedom now going on in Eng- " HOMERI ILIAS." Size, 514 in. x 3% in. Bound by Cobden-Sanderson. land. He is a friend and fellow-labourer of Mr. William Morris and of Mr. Walter Crane with whose socialistic propaganda he is in sympa- Bookbindings Old and New. 131 thy, and with whom he manifests and parades. He takes much the same view of Hfe that they SHKLLF.V. "THK Kl'A'Ol.r i )1' ISLAM. Size, ZVi in. X 5V4 in. Bound by Cobden-Sanderson. have; he holds the same creed as to society, and as to each man's duty toward it ; he has the 132 Bookbindings Old and New. same aim in art ; and he is gifted with not a httle of the same decorative instinct. Believ- ing in handicraft as the salvation of humanity, and that a man should labour with his hands, he abandoned the bar, and studied the trade of the binder. Perhaps it is hardly unfair to call him an amateur — so Mr. Hunt was an ama- teur when he desio:ned those most beautiful wrought-iron gates at Newport. IMr. Cobden- Sanderson's forwarding has not yet attained to the highest professional standard. But there are not lacking book-lovers who believe him to be the most orio-inal and the most effective finisher who has yet appeared in England. His tooling is admirably firm and dazzlingly vigorous. Whatever the inadequacy of his workmanship in the processes which precede the gilding, — and in these his hand is steadily gaining strength, — there is no disputing his decorative endowarient. He brought to the study of bookbinding an alert intelligence, a trained mind, and a determination to master the secrets of the art. He does all his own work, beins: both forwarder and finisher, un- "IN MEMORIAM." Size, 6% in. x ^Vi in. Bound by Cobden-Sanderson. 133 Bookbindings Old and New. 135 aided even by an apprentice, although his wife (a daughter of Richard Cobden) has taken charge of the sewing. He designs his own tools, having them cut especially for him. Even the letters he uses were drawn for him by Miss May Morris ; and he makes a most artful use of lettering, — working initials, names, titles, and mottos into his design, and making them an integral and essential part of the scheme of decoration. He has studied most lovingly the methods of " Le Gascon," and he has assimilated some of the taste of that master of the art; it is from " Le Gascon," no doubt, that Mr. Cobden-Sanderson caught the knack of powdering parts of his design with gold points, stars, single leaves, and the like \ — a device giving the utmost brilliancy to the design if used skilfully. Mr. Cobden-Sanderson will not work to order. He binds only those books that please j him, and he binds them as he pleases. He j is independent of the caprices of his cus- [ tomers. He does not undertake many vol- umes, and with each he does his best. 136 Bookbindings Old and New. When a novice, trying his 'prentice hand, he wasted himself more than once on volumes ■"THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON. Bound bv Cobden-Sanderson. of no great value, and put a fifty dollar binding on a book not worth five — a pe- cuniary solecism, an artistic incongruity. Of Bookbindings Old and Nezv. 137 late he has not fallen into this blunder, and he prefers to spend himself on books of permanent value in the original edition. Of course he never repeats himself ; every one of his bindings is as unique as a picture ; there are no replicas. Every cover is com- posed for the volume itself, and is often the outcome of a loving study of the author, a decorative scheme having been suggested by some representative passage. But he never confounds decoration with illustration ; as he explained in an article on his art, " beauty is the aim of decoration, and not illustration, or the expression of ideas." So we do not find on his books any of the childish symbolism which has been abundantly advocated in England, and according to which a treatise on zoology or botany must be adorned with an animal or a flower — a bald and babyish labelling of a book wholly unrelated to propriety of orna- mentation. Mr. Cobden-Sanderson's covers are generally rich with conventionalized flowers arrayed with geometrical precision. He falls 138 Bookbindings Old and New. into a naturalistic treatment only at rare and regrettable moments. In a copy of Mr. Mor- ris's " Hopes and Fears for Art," which Mr. Cobden-Sanderson has bound, the design has a careful freedom of composition and an artful symmetry; the treatment of the rose-branches which form the border is almost purely con- ventional, and the broad blank space in the centre is restfully open. In America the art of the binder is retarded by reasons really outside of art — by the high wages of skilled workmen, and by the high tariff on raw materials, which have so raised the cost of the best bookbinding that many book-lovers in New York have been wont to send their precious tomes on a long voyage across the Atlantic, to be bound in London or Paris. Americans were among the best customers of Francis Bedford, and the cata- logue of the Grolier Club exhibition proves that they have been persistent purchasers of the best work of contemporary French binders. But to send books abroad to be bound is no way to encourage the development of the A UINDING BY COliUEN-SANDERSON. NEW TESTAMENT. Bound by William Matthews, in light brown crushed levant, inlaid with blue and red morocco. By permission of Mr. Matthews. 141 Bookbindings Old and New. 1 43 art at home. This same Groher Chib exhibi- tion showed that American craftsmen were cap- able of turning out work of a very high rank. The best of the books bound by Mr. William Matthews, by Mr. Alfred Matthews, by Brad- streets, by Mr. Smith, and by Mr. Stikeman, held their own fairly well. Considering the dif- ficulties under which the art has developed in this country, the showing made by the Amer- ican binders was the most creditable. For a binding like Mr. William Matthew's " Knickerbocker's History of New York," there is no need to make any apology ; it is excellent in conception and in execution, pure in style, modestly original, and most harmoniously decora- tive, with its appropriate ship, its tiny tulips, and its wreaths of willow. The inventor of these designs for the inside and the outside of the Knickerbocker was Mr. Louis J. Rhead, whom Mr. Matthews had called to his aid. Although both Mr. Matthews and Mr. Rhead are Englishmen by birth, I think I can feel an American influence in the decoration of this American book. If I am right, this is evi- 144 Bookbindings Old and New. dence, were any needed, of the great advantage tlicre is in having a book bound by a coun- tryman of the autlior, who will treat it with unconscious propriety of decoration. I know a wise collector in New York who makes it a rule to have his French books bound in Paris, his English books bound in London, and his American books bound here in New York. " Fifty years ago," said Mr. William Matthews in his interestinor address on his art, " there was not a finely bound book, except what by chance had been procured abroad, to be found in anv collection in America. Fine binding^ was an unknown art." Now in the last de- cade of the nineteenth century, Mr. Matthews thinks " there are many examples of American workmanship in our collections that would do honour to the best French and Enfylish binders of O the last half-centur}'." If this is true, much of the credit for the improvement of public taste is due to the influence of ^Ir. Matthews himself. Of modern Italian and German binding there is no necessity or space to say anything here. IRVING'S "KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK. Bound by William Matthews. Publislierl by the Grolier Club, 1888. Owned by Mr. William Matthews. 145 Bookbindings Old and New. 147 The tradition of vellum binding has been kept alive in Rome and in Florence, where the bevel- edged white tomes are often relieved by an inlaid rectangle of coloured calf, tooled with what might perhaps be called fairly enough a Neo-Aldine pattern. The exhibition of the Grolier Club, which has aided in the preparation and in the illustration of these pages, included no Italian work, — and this is evidence that our collec- tors, rightly or wrongly, do not hold it in high esteem. Nor was there a single specimen of Teutonic handiwork. Yet Trautz was a German by birth, and earlier in this century there were several German binders established in England — Walther, Kalthoeber, Staggemeier. Even now, while one of the leading binders of Lon- don, Mr. Riviere, is of French descent, another, Mr. Zaehnsdorf, is of German, In New York many of the journeyman bookbinders are Ger- mans. Not only was the bibliopegic art of Germany unrepresented at this recent exhi- bition in New York, but in none of the many recent books about binding, French, English, 148 Bookbindings Old and New. and American, do I find any attention paid to the work of the modern Germans. Several years ago M. Rouveyre of Paris, who had pubHshed half a dozen books about binding, arranged for a French edition of a collection of O German bindings ; and of " La Dorure sur Cuir (Reliure, Ciselure, Gaufrure) en Allemagne." Fifty copies were issued, the same publisher hav- ing risked fifteen hundred copies of M. Octave Uzanne's " La Reliure Moderne." From the well-made reproductions in this volume, it is fair to infer that the German binding of to-day is not remarkably interesting. It is sometimes dull and sometimes pretentious; it is frequently designed by architects who are without training in the needs and possibilities of its technic ; it is often violently polychromatic ; and it is sometimes set off by elaborate panels of inserted enamel, and by richly chiselled corners and centrepieces of silver. What is best is the artful employ- ment of vigorous blind-tooling; and what is most noteworthy is the successful revival of the mediaeval art of carving in leather, always best understood by the Germans. INSIDE COVER OF PRECEDING. 149 III. THE OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE. Much as one might expect a precious metal to enrich a tome, there is more than a hint of Teutonic heaviness in most of these carved- leather covers, girt with soHd silver clasps, and armed with chased medallions. The occasional attempts of American silversmiths at book-dec- oration are lighter and more graceful. I have seen more than one prayer-book, the smooth dark calfskin of which was shielded by a thin shell of silver pierced with delicate arabesques. But this is almost an accidental return to a method of ornamentation long past its useful- ness, and appropriate only when every book was a portly tome bound in real boards, and repos- ing in solitary glory on its own lectern. The future of bookbinding does not lie in any alli- ance with silversmithery. Just where the future of bookbinding docs 151 152 Bookbindings Old and Neiu. He is very difficult to declare. Cosmopolitan commonplace is the characteristic of much of the work of to-day. Craftsmen of remarkable technical skill are content with convention- ality and they go on indefinitely repeating the old styles, — Maioli and Grolier, Padeloup and Derome, — styles which were once alive, but which have long since been void of any germ of vitality. To persist in using them is like refusing to speak any language but Latin. For a man alive to-day a living dialect, how- ever impure, is better than a lifeless language, however perfect. There are not wanting signs of a reaction against the banality of modern bookbinding. One of them is the instant success of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson's innovations. Another is the return to silver-mounting. Yet a third, curious only, and infertile, is the decoration of a book-cover with enamels, either incrusted or applied. The Germans have taken to letting a monogram, ornamented or metal, into the centre of a book-cover ; but nothing seems to be gained by this which a mosaic of leather Bookbindings Old and New. 153 would not have given. The late Philippe Burty, the distinguished French art-critic, and a book-lover with the keenest likinsf for nov- elty, had a copy on Dutch paper of Poulet- Malassis's essay on " Ex-Libris " ; he enriched it with other interesting book-plates; he in- serted a few autograph letters ; he had it bound by R, Petit in full morocco, with his mono- gram at the corners ; and in the centre of the side he let in a metal plate on which his own book-plate was enamelled in niello. This singu- larly personal binding is reproduced in M. Oc- tave Uzanne's volume on " La Reliure Moderne," where we find another of M. Burty's experi- ments, a copy of M. Claudius Popelin's " De la Statue et de la Peinture " (translated from Alberti), also bound by Petit, and also identi- fied by the owner's monogram, and having, moreover, in the centre of the side, an enam- elled panel made by M. Popelin himself for his friend's copy of his own book. Burty had in his collections other volumes dis- tinguished by enamels ; and there were in the Grolier Club exhibition a set of books belonging 154 Bookbindings Old and New. to Mr. S. P. Avery, and quite as much out of the common as Burty's. Mr. Avery has sent certain volumes of the " BibHotheque de I'En- seignement des Beaux-arts " to the authors, asking each to indicate the binding which he thought most consonant with his work; so Mr. Avery has " La Faience," of M. Theodore Deck, decorated with panels of pottery, one of them being a portrait of the author executed at his own ceramic works; and he has Sauzy's " Marvels of Glass-Making," with covers con- taining glass panels enamelled in colours. These ventures belong among the curiosities of the art ; they are to be classed among the freaks rather than with the professional beauties. Another book of Burty's (now owned by Mr. Avery) has an exceptional interest — an interest perhaps rather literary than rigidly artistic. It is a copy of the original edition of Victor Hugo's scorching satire, " Napoleon le Petit," published in 1853, a few months after Napoleon had broken his oath and made himself emperor; this copy (made doubly pre- Bookbindings Old aiid New. 155 cious by three lines in the poet's handwriting) was bound in dark green morocco, and the side was hollowed out to receive an embroid- " LES CHATIMENTS." VICTOR HUGO, 1853. Bound by Petit. Green morocco. The " Bee " from the throne of Napo- leon ni., Tuileries, September, 1870. Owned by Mr. Samuel P. Avery. ered bee — a bee which had been cut from the throne of Napoleon III. in the Tuileries a few days after the battle of Sedan. This is the very irony of bookbinding. A copy of 156 Bookbindings Old and New. " Les Chatiments " was bound to match. Future collectors will find these bees of Burty even harder to acquire than those which mark the books of De Thou. Unusual, not to say unique, as such an opportunity must be, there is here a hint for the book-lover not by him to be despised. Here at least is an exceptional binding. Here at least we leave the monotonous iteration of the cut-and-dried. Here is a method of estab- lishing a relation between the subject of the book and its exterior not hitherto attempted. For nine books out of ten the conventional binding suffices, Jansenist crushed levant for the costly volumes, simple half morocco for those less valuable. But for the special treas- ures, for the books with an individuality of their own, why may we not abandon this bar- ren impersonality and seek to get out of the regular rut ? M. Octave Uzanne has avowed that he would prefer to have a copy of the " Legende des Siecles " clad soberly in a fragment of the dark-green uniform which Hugo wore the day he Bookbindings Old mid New. 157 was received into the French Academy, to the same volume bound with the utmost luxury by the best binder of the time. Perhaps it is carrying this fancy a little too far to bind the Last Dying Speech and Confession of a mur- derer in a strip of his own hide properly tanned, or even to cover Holbein's " Dance of Death " with a like ghastly integument ; but I confess I should find a particular pleasure in owning the copy of Washington Irving's " Conquest of Grenada," which Mr. Roger de Coverly bound " in Spanish morocco from Valencia" for the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in London in 1S89. In his " Caprices d'un Bibliophile," pub- lished in 1878, M. Octave Uzanne urged book-lovers to seek out a greater variety of leathers. The French are not afBicted with what Dickens called " that underdone pie-crust cover which is technically known as law-calf," and which is desolately monotonous ; nor have they ever cared either for sprinkled calf, as dull and decorous as orthodoxy, or for " tree- marbled calf," much affected by the British. i5n-tury Co. I il'i' PANEL FROM BACK AND COVER OF "OLD ITALIAN MASTERS." as boldly as the explorer or the soldier. Often he will discover strange countries fair to see, which he will annex forthwith. Sometimes the search for novelty is re- warded only by a chance fantasticality. A volume of ghost-stories by Mrs, Molesworth 2oS Bookbi/KiliNgs Old and New. liad a plain cloth cover, from the side of which, as one gazed at it, there seemed sud- denly to start a shadowy figure — due to a stamp which did no more than remove the glaze of the calico, not changing its colour. Colonel Norton's glossary of " Political Ameri- canisms" was covered with a dark-blue cloth turned inside out, and exposing a blue-gray grain, on which there was printed, in the original dark blue, the title, set off by the figure of the fearsome gerrymander. But these are trifles — the casual freaks of com- mercial bibliopegy. III. THE SEARCH FOR NOVELTY. More fertile is the effort to find special cloths for special books, to enlarge the num- ber of fabrics from which the binder may choose. The very step in advance which M. Octave Uzanne urged upon the artistic book- binders of France has been taken by the commercial bookbinders of America ; and we are constantly seeing new stuffs impressed into the service. M. Uzanne claims the in- vention of the cartonnage a la Pompadour, the clothing of a light and lively tale of the eighteenth century in a brocade or a damask of the period. This is almost exactly what a publisher in Boston did when he sent forth Mrs. Higginson's " Princess of Java," clad in the cotton which the Javanese wear. It was what a publisher in New York did when he sent forth Mr. Lafcadio Hearn's '' Youma," p 209 2 lo Bookbindings Old and New, the story of a slave, covered with the sim- ple fabric that slaves dress in. It was what a London publisher did when he sent forth a tiny little tome of old-time fashions, " Our Grandmothers' Gowns," bound with the chintzes and calicoes of bygone days. The American edition of Charles Lamb's " Poetry for Children " was issued by Messrs, Charles Scribner's Sons in a half-binding of some woven material such as is used in the nursery for the pinafores of childhood ; and the same publisher covered Mr. Riis's stimulating account of " How the Other Half Lives," with a stuff very like that from which the labourer's overalls are made, a most appropriate garment for a book like Mr, Riis's. Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. have made experiment of a more aesthetic fabric, Persian silk; they used it for the back of Miss Jewett's " Strangers and Wayfarers," on which it contrasted boldly with the white side bearing Mrs. Whitman's deco- rative lettering imprinted in the colour of the silk ; and they employed it again for Brown- ing's latest volume of poems, " Asolando," in Bookbindings Old mid New. 2 1 1 this case covering the whole book, one side of which was further decorated by a dignified panel and border of Mrs. Whitman's design- ing. I know of no recent commercial binding more satisfactory than this, or more adequate %/ ;,i A,S I !^^ J.bl'^" Ui yc ,^ .TSiV 1,^ -y -S: J y J . j:.. -^'. -^ '^J- -^ -^ ~J- -^J? ...-<■»; A copy of the sampler worked by the "girl." Lettered by A. Hilgen- reiner, die-cutter. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, [ii^'f (. O-'i—^^ "A GIRL'S LIFE 8o YEARS AGO," BY ELIZA SOUTHGATE BOWNE. ^ "^ '- to its purpose, the appropriate sheathing of a poet's last words. This same house published the " Book of the Tile Club," a portly folio bound in sturdy 2 1 2 Bookbindings Old and Xew. canvas — a material already used by Mr. Mar- vin (for Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons) in the cover of " A Girl's Life So Years Aero " (whereon the title was printed in imitation of a child's sampler, a pleasant fantasy). The " Book of the Tile Club '' was altogether a more imposing tome, with its delightfully decorative side-stamp by Mr. Stanford White, with its prominent (not to call them aggres- sive) ner\'es across the back, with its brass- bound corners, with every page separately and securely mounted on a linen guard, and with its personal and peculiar end-papers wherein we can trace the portraits or insignia of the Tilers, with even,' one his 7iom de giierre. " The Book of the Tile Club " was aimed high ; and it hit its mark fairly and squarely in the bull's eye. End-papers of special design are among the refinements of book-making, which might be seen oftener than they are when publishers are giving time and thought to the preparation of an exceptional volume. Those in the Grolier Club edition of the " Philobiblon " were admirably Stanford Vi'h te. '• A BOOK OF THE TILE CLUB.' 21 ; Published by Houghton, Mifflin &. Co. ItU Bookbindings Old and New. 215 in keeping with the text. They may even be made useful, as they were in Dr. Eggleston's histories of the United States, where they are maps. But supplementary delicacies of this sort can be expected only when, in the phrase of the cockney art-critic, " the book is illustrated by the celebrated French artist De Luxe." Still rarer is another ancillary adornment to be found in certain proof copies of Mr. W. J. Loftie's " Kensington : Picturesque and Histori- cal." These, it was announced by the publisher, would " have painted in water-colours on the front, under the gilt edges of the leaves, a couple of Kensington views, which, until the leaves are bent back at an angle, will be invisible." In Mr. S. P. Avery's copy of the Grolier Club edition of Irving's " Knickerbocker," the water-colours un- der the gilt of the fore-edge are the work of Mr. G. H. Boughton. But this is an excur- sus. There are so many byways of booklore that the book-lover can hardly help digressing occasionally. IV. STAMPED LEATHER. From the beginning commercial binding has concerned itself chiefly with cloth, with but an occasional venture with other fabrics, — hnen, or dimity, or silk. The few copies of certain single books, and of full sets of certain authors, which publishers now and again advertise as ready in half-calf, in tree-calf, or in crushed levant-mo- rocco are not really commercial bindings ; they are more or less artistic bindings done chiefly by hand, but done wholesale. Generally they are to be avoided by all who hope to see their books really well bound, for they lack the loving care with which a conscientious craftsman treats the single volume intrusted to him to bind as best he can ; and they are also without the merits of another sort which we find in the best cloth coverings. Sometimes, of course, the sets which publishers offer in leather are honestly forwarded 216 Designed by Stanford White. Published by the Century Co. "THE CENTURY DICTIONARY." 217 Bookbindings Old and New. 2 1 g and thoroughly finished : but for the most part they are hasty and soulless. To the true book-lover's eye no crushed levant can be too fine or too magnificent for the book he truly loves : In red morocco drest he loves to boast, The bloody murder, or the yelling ghost : Or dismal ballads, sung to crowds of old, Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold. Knowing this, some American publishers have issued the whole edition of certain books bound in full leather, and with the covers stamped in appropriate designs. Here we have the methods of the best cloth-binding applied to the best material, leather. These books are as carefully forwarded and finished as though they were hand-work ; indeed, almost the only objection the purist might make against them would be the saw-cuts in the back ; and this objection is minimized by the fact that the volume is now permanently clothed, and that there will there- fore be no need to rebind it. Although plates were engraved even in the fifteenth century to stamp the sides of leather- 220 Bookbindings Old and New. bound books, the practice had long ceased except so far as dictionaries, prayer-books, and bibles were concerned ; and even in its palmiest days the plate was an imitation of a hand-tooled side, and not an orio-inal desio;n of a nature appropriate to the individual book. It is the 9[nt>rtaB Jflfintns IBIlcst -cr in Collfgio ^rincrtoniff professor ti ® $ars $rftna q Crjrttis ® || REDUCED FACSIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF GROLIER CLUl! LATIN EDITION OF " PHILOBIBLON." book-lovers, just as Grolier holds the foremost place among all French book-lovers ; and it was most fit and appropriate that a company of American book-lovers named for the French- Bookbindings Old and New. 327 man should choose for reverent reproduction the masterpiece of the Enghshman. The task was honourable but laborious ; and it was undertaken not lightly or in a spirit of levity, but with courage, determination, and fore- bomiiii fliratbi be aiunctrbilc tosmnninati \>z aSutp ' -quoitbam iCfijttopi SI>undmniiBii#. dTomjifauji- *>cjst flutnn ttiutimifl; i.stc in inmima no^tro bc^ ■ ">- nirno Domini miflc;$imo trctntfcsriinii -** ■^-*=- nuabniffcflimo nunito, ittatiX nosT; -^-^■ ^— «»- as quhuiimscsfimo ortabo ptu — *-** •«»--«= — » tijfe tompirto, ponnKtatuji g -- < •■ < ■■ • ^ ■ • > ■ • > - bcto nOiSlri anno unbe; - < .■ < •■ < . -*>— «»— s=— s=- tma finitna ab laus -<»—:»- < ■ ■ < » • > ■ > ■> ■ • > — btm Dd taitis <« 1 ^ • \- ..-^ •>-ttr. amtn.- REDUCED FACSIMILE OF LAST PAGE OF GROLIER CLUB LATIN EDITION OF " PHILOBIBLON." thought. The mechanical execution was con- fided to Mr. De Vinne, than whom no one was worthier. The literary labour was under- taken by Professor Andrew Fleming West 328 Bookbindings Old and New. of Princeton, who had ah-eady lectured before the club upon the book he was to edit. Pro- fessor West shrunk not from the toil of a dutiful comparison of manuscripts and early editions that a proper text might be estab- lished ; and this proper text, most devoutly amended and revised, the club sent forth as the first volume. In the second was contained Professor West's sturdy and precise render- ing of the original Latin into our later Eng- lish. These two volumes, long delayed by the ardent and arduous labours of the editor, were followed by a third volume in which was to be found an introduction, an account of the author, and such notes as were need- ful for the elucidation of the work. The edition was limited to two hundred and ninety-seven copies on paper and three on vel- lum, one of which latter is properly reserved for the library of the club. The volumes are clad in pure vellum covers, stamped with the gold seal of the good bishop, while within there is a novel lining-paper, rich in colour and congruent in design. The form is a small Bookbindings Old and New. 329 quarto, with a page six inches wide and a httle less than eight inches long. The paper, a so-called " white antique," is American hand- made by the Brown Company, and Mr. De Vinne regards it as whiter, clearer, and better than any English, Dutch, or Italian jDrinting paper. The typography is not merely decent and seemly ; it is as exact and as beautiful as the utmost skill and loving care could make it. The type of the first volume, which contains the Latin text, is a pica black-letter ; the second volume, which contains the English translation, being set in modern Roman (not old style) small pica. The black-letter types were got out of the vaults of Sir Charles Reed's Sons for Mr. De Vinne by Mr. Talbot Baines Reed, and they are drives of punches believed to have been cut in France in the first half of the sixteenth century. There are rubricated initials, of a full-bodied vermilion not often seen nowadays. There are head-pieces and tail-pieces, some of them, and the more ingenious, having been devised by 330 Bookbindings Old and New. Mr. G. W. Edwards. There is a page of fair proportion (as we have seen), and there is a type rightly adjusted thereto; and there is the very perfection of press-work, ahke impeccable in impression and in register. Herein indeed we see the final superiority of the best modern printing by improved machines when guided by a fine artistic sense ; such registry as this would be absolutely accidental, not to say impossible, on the hand-presses of the early printers. In the manufacture of this edition of the " Philobiblon " there was the full harmony which comes from a union of knowledge, skill, and taste. It is a delight to the eye, to the hand, and to the mind. At last the book of Richard de Bury had a goodly outside, as becomes the words of wisdom within. To love books and to own a book like this is to have a foretaste of the book-lover's heaven. To study a book like this in an edition like this leads away from vice and conduces to virtue. Indeed we read therein (cap. xv.) that " no man can serve both books and mammon." Bookbindings Old and New. 33 1 In 1889 in an edition of three hundred copies there was published the lecture on " Modern Bookbinding Practically Considered " which Mr. William Matthews had delivered before the club four years before and from which more than one quotation has been taken to enlighten the preceding pages of the pres- ent volume. Externally this volume ranged with the published lectures of Mr. Hoe and Mr. De Vinne ; and internally it was illus- trated as Mr. Hoe's had been with abundant photogravures. In 1890 one of the most artistic of the club's publications was issued, — artistic largely because of its seemly simplicity. This was an edition of three hundred and twenty-five copies of the " Areopagitica, a speech of Mr, John Milton, for the liberty of unlicensed printing." For this Lowell wrote an intro- duction, characteristically commingled of wis- dom and of wit : it is now to be found in the latest edition of his complete works. In 189 1 the chief publication was the address on " Washington Irving " which George Will- 332 Bookbindings Old and New. iam Curtis had delivered at Ashfield two years before and which has since been inckided in the posthumous volume of his " Literary and Social Essays." This was fitly illustrated, and the edition was limited to three hundred and forty-four copies. As the club increased its membership, the size of its editions had also to increase. Hitherto the publications of the Grolier Club had been of two kinds : either they were lectures delivered before the members or they w^ere independent works which the club wished to honour. Now there began to appear a third class, being the catalogues of the exhibitions held at the club-house. In 1891 there was pub- lished a catalogue of engraved portraits of the most famous English writers, from Chaucer to Johnson; followed in 1892 by a catalogue of illuminated and painted manuscripts ; and in 1893 ^^y ^ catalogue of original and early editions of some of the poetical and prose works of English writers from Langland to Wither. In 1894 there was printed a classified list of early American book-plates; and in 1895 Bookbmdings Old and New. 333 a cataloQ^ue of books from the libraries or col- lections of celebrated bibliophiles and illustrious persons of the past, with arms or devices upon the bindings. Most of these lists were set off and enriched with facsimiles; and all were models of the typographic art. And akin to these records of special exhibitions held within the club-house, was a volume of " Transac- tions " published toward the end of 1894 and containing the history of the club to the end of its first decade. In this summary list of these several cata- logues, I could not of course refer to two other publications made in the past five years. One of them was an original essay by Mr. Moncure D. Conway on " The Barons of the Potomack and the Rappahannock," of which three hundred and sixty copies were printed in 1892. The other was a facsimile of Bradford's " Laws and Acts of the General Assembly for their Majesties Province of New York. Originally printed in 1694, it was reprinted by the club in an edition of three hundred and twelve copies just two centuries after the laws had been enacted. 334 Bookbindings Old and New. Two other of the publications of the Grolier Club must be mentioned here, — if publications they can fairly be called. The first was a bronze medallion portrait of Nathaniel Haw- thorne, made for the club by M. Ringel d'lll- zach in 1892; and the second was an etching by M. Fran9ois Flameng of the picture of " Aldus in his Printing Establishment at Venice, showing Grolier some Bookbindings," the original having been painted by M. Fran9ois Flameng and presented to the club by Mr. S. P. Avery — to whom, indeed, the library of the Grolier (like that of the Players) is indebted for many benefactions. The membership of the Grolier Club was at first limited to one hundred (it has now been enlarged to allow of two hundred and fifty resident members), but the editions of its pub- lications have generally somewhat exceeded the smaller number, and the unfortunate outsider has sometimes been able to acquire these treasures by the aid of a friend at court. This liberality is in proper accord with the spirit of the inscription stamped Bookbindings Old and New. 335 on Grolier's own books, — lo. Grolierii et ainicorum, — setting forth that they belonged to Grolier and his friends. Surely an altruism like this is as rare as the selfishness of Sca- liger, who bade his friends buy books for them- selves. To grant or to withhold, the question is equally difficult — (sqtie diffiailter. When all book- owners shall freely lend and send their most precious tomes with ungrudging speed, then will be the book-lover's millennium, which the founding of the Grolier Club here in New York may haply help to bring to pass. And in the meanwhile its members may pine for that book-man's Paradise: There treasures bound for Longepierre Keep brilliant their morocco blue, There Hookes' "Amanda" is not rare, Nor early tracts upon Peru ! Racine is common as Rotrou, No Shakspere Quarto search defies, And Caxtons grew as blossoms grew, Within that Book-man's Paradise. INDEX. Abbey, E. A., 199, 2 '3. Aguisy, Viscount of [Grolier], 5. Aldine Press, iS, 22. A dine typographic devices, 26. A. us, 14, 76. American silversmiths' book deco- rating, 151. Amyot, Jacques, 48. Armstrom , Miss, 242. Arnold, Matthew, 117. Assyrian ookbinding, 6. Astor Library, 301. Auriol, M., 256. Avery, S. P., 154, 215. Badier, Florimond, 58. Bedford, Francis, 107, 126. Bewick, 118. Binders of to-day, 119. Binding by machinery, 182. Bindings in cloth, 176. Block design for covers, 177. Bolton, H. Carrington, 312. Bookbinding in France, 89. Bookbinding, early Italian, 14. Bookbinding in Venice, 18. Bookbinding in Venice during fifteenth century, 75. Bookbinding in America, 90, 138, 144. Bookbinding in France under Napoleon I., 116. Bookbinding in monasteries, 9. Bookbinding, exhibition at the Grolier Club, 108. Bookbinding, forwarding, and finishing, loi. Bookbinding, wooden boards, ID. Bookbinding in silver, 9. Bookbinding, carved ivory, 9. Bookbinding, commercial, 182. Bookbinding, antiquity of edition binding, 171. Bookbinding, technic of the craft, 95- Bookbinding, as it is practised to-day, 98. Bookbinding, " forwarding," 95. Bookbinding, the "Powder," 38. Bookbinding, curiosities, 152. Bookbinders of Great Britain, 90, 125. Bookbinders' tools, 25. Bookbinders, modern French, 1 22 . Bookbinder as an artisan-artist, 167. Book covers in calico, 184. " Book of the Tile Club," 212. Book Fellows' Club, 311. Books first bound in cloth, 184. Books bound in sealskin, 159. Books in paper covers, 233. 337 338 Index. Books with illustrated paper covers, 238. Books bound in alligator skin, 158. Book-worm, 10. Boone, Daniel, 160. Boughton, G. H., 200, 215. Boule, 80. Boyets, the, 71. Bradley, W. H., 266. British and American paper covers, 264. British railway novels, 240. British booksellers, 194. Burlington Fine Arts Club, 310. Burton's " Book-hunter," 3. Burty, Philippe, 153. Caldecott, Randolph, 237, 278. Cape, 122. Caran d'Ache, 259. Castellani, modern workers in silver, 1 1 1 . Cellini, Benvenuto, 9, 18. Chambolle-Duru, 122. Champney, J. Wells, 313. Charles V., 9. Charles IX., 5, 37, 53. Cheret, Jules, 175, 245, 248, 250. Cloth binding, 176, 184. Cloth binding for special books, 209. Clubs of New York, 293. Cobden-Sanderson, 62, 104, 129, 132. 152, 166. Columbia College Library, 301. Conway, Moncure, D., " Barons of Potomack," 333. Coverly, Roger de, 132. Crane, Walter, 132, 237,241,277. Cruickshank's " Comic Alpha- bet," 241. Curtis, George William, 331. Cuzin, 122. Dana's "Two Years," 160. '* Daphnis et Chloe," 72. Day, Lewis F., 204. Derome, 47, 152. Derome, the younger, 83. Derome, lacework borders, 85. De Samblancx, 122. De Thou, Jacques Auguste, 47. De Vinne, Theodore L., 323, 329. De Vinne, " Plantin." Diana of Poitiers, 54. Dibdin, 84, 118. Didot, F., 14. Dobson, Austin, 161. Dubuisson, 86. DuChaillu's ''Land of Midnight Sun," 199. Edwards, G. W., designs for book covers, 227. Eisen, 86. Erasmus, 5. Evans, E., colour printer, 277. Eve, Nicolas, 57. Eve, Clovis, 57. " Fanfares," 57. Ferriar, 182. Flameng, 334. Fournier, Edouard, 14, 18. Fox, C. J., "Speeches" bound in fox skin, 159. Francis L, 5, 37. Index. 339 Francis II., 5. Fraser, W. Lewis, 312. Furniss, Harry, 260. Gautier's '' Une Nuit de Cleo- patre," 159. German binders in England, 147. German bookbinding, modern, 144. Gilson, finisher for William Mat- thews, 106. Grasset, M., 245, 248. Gravelot, 86. Greenaway, Kate, 278. Grolier, 6, 17, 18, 152. Grolier's motto, 30. Grolier and the Renascence, 5. Grolier bindings, 21. Grolier bookbinding tools, 26. Grolier Club, 291. Grolier Club building, 305. Grolier Club e.xhibition of book- bindings, T)2„ 121. Grolier Club meetings and lec- tures, 311. Grolier Club, origin of, 302. Grolier Club publications, 314. Gruel and Engelmann, 122. Gruel, M. Leon, 58. Guinti, 5. "Guirlande de Julie," 58. Hannah, G., 312. Hardy-Dumennil, 126. Hawthorne, 334. Heber, 182. Henry II., 5,37, 54. Henry II. and Diana of Poitiers, 38. Henry III., 54. Henry IV., 53. Higginson, Mrs., "Princess of Java," 209. Hildeburn, C. R., 313. Hoe, Robert, 302. Holbein's " Dance of Death," 157- Holmes, Dr. Oliver W., 17. Horace, g. Hugo's " Napoleon le Petit," bound in morocco with the " Bee " from the throne of Napoleon III., 155. Hunt, R. M., 135. Illuminated horn-books, 271. Illustrated children's books, 237. Italian bookbinding, modern, 144. Ives, Brayton, 312. Jacquemart, Jules, 204. Jansenists, 71. Joly, 122. Jones, Owen, ''Alhambra," bound by Matthews, 106. Kalthoeber, 147. Keppel, F., 312. Kingsley, Elbridge, 312. Knapp, Professor, 312. La Farge, 269. Lamartine, 1 17. Lamb's " Poetry for Children," 210. Lang, Andrew, 296. Latlnop, Francis, 265. 340 Index. Laugel. Auguste, books bound for Napoleon I., 117. Laurin, Marc, his motto, 33. Lavedan, Henry, 252. Le Gascon, 47, 58, 62. Leighton, Archibald, 187. Le Roux de Lincy, 5, 17, 30, 297. Lewis, English bookbinder, 118. Linton, W. J., 312. Locker, " Lyra Elegantiarum," 307- Longepierre, 163. Lortic, 122. Loti, P., 162. Louis XIL, 37. Louis XI n. bookbinders use lace- makers' designs, 79. Louis XIV., bookbinding during his reign, 68. Louis XV., 72. Low, Will H., 237. Magonigle, Harold, 200. Maioli, 47, 152. Maioli motto, 33. Mansfield, H., 312. Margaret of Valois, 54. Marius-Michel, M.,43, 57, 122. Martial, 9. Mary of Cleves, 54. Matthews, William, 62, 96, 143, 144. Matthews, W., ''Modern Book- binding," etc., 331. Matthews, W., " How to Work a Design," 106. Matthews, W., " Bookbinding Practically Considered," 96. Matthews, Alfred, 143. Mazarin Library, 43. Mazarine, Cardinal, 66. Medici, Cardinal de, 9. Merson, Luc Oliver, 265. Moinaux, Jules, 259. Molesworth, Mrs., 207. Monograms, 163. Monvel, Boutet de, 283. Moreau, 87. Morin. Louis, 259. Morris, William, 132. Morris, W., " Hopes and Fears for Art," bound by Cobden- Sanderson, 138. Morris, Miss May, 136. Morse, Miss Alice E., 203. Niedree, 122. Nodier, Charles, 57. Norton's " Political American- isms," 208. Ogier, Guillaume, 14. " Our Grandmothers' Gowns," 210. Padeloup, '72, 152. Padeloup's bookbinding designs, 80. " Pandectarum Juris Florentini," 43- Parsons, Alfred, 223. Payne, Roger, 89, 117. Pennell, Joseph, 237, 242. Petit, R.. 153. Petrarch, 10. Pictorial poster, 246. Picture-book covers in France, 251. Index. 341 Picture posters in Italy, 249. " Philobiblon " of Richard de Bury, publislied by the Grolier Club, 212, 326. Plantin, 48. Poulet-Malassis's " Ex-Libris," 153- Prime, W. C, 312. Printers (early) as bookbinders, 176. Pyle, Howard, design for "Robin Hood," 223. Quaritch's " Catalogue of Book- bindings," 107, 126. Quentin-Bauchard, " Daphnis at Chloe," 72. Quinet, 122. Reed, Sir Charles Reed's Sons, 329- Remington, illustrations to Long- fellow's " Hiawatha," 227. Renascence, 6. Rhead, Louis J., 143. Ricordi, 250. Rice, Prof. R. R., 312. Riis's "How the Other Half Lives," 210. Ris, Clement de, 30, 53. Riviere, 147. ' Robida's " Rabelais," 249. Romola, 14. Rossi, M., design for "L'lmmor- tel," 238. Rouveyre, M., on German bind- ings, 148. Ruban, 122. Scaliger, his motto, 33. Schwabe, Carloz, " Le Reve," 256. '•Sette of Odd Volumes," 311. Sherwin, Harold B., 271. Shugio, H., 312. Silversmiths in France, 9. Simonetti, 250. Smith, R., 143. " Societe des Amis des Livres," 309- Staggemeier, 147. Stamped designs for the whole side of a book, 178. Stamped leather, 216. Steinlen, M., 256. Stevenson, R. L., 271. Stevens, Henry, 122. Stevens, Alfred, 175. Stikeman, 143. Sturgis, Russell, 312. Thibaron, 120. Thoreau, 192. Thouvenin, 57. Tiffany & Co., 160. Tory, Geoffroy, 18, 76. Trautz, 119, 126, 147, 166. Trautz-Bauzonnet, 287. Tree calf, 158. Uzanne, Octave, " La Reluire Moderne," 108. Uzanne, " Caprices d'un Bibli- ophile," 157. Vedder, E., 200, 237, 265. Vergil, 9. Voltaire, 17. Walther, 147. 342 Index. Warner, "Clothes of Fiction,"'' 237- Water-colours painted under the gilt edges of leaves, 215. West, Prof. A. F., 312, 327. Wheatley, Henr\- B., 175. White, Stanford, 175, 265. White, Stanford, design for "Book of Tile Club," 212. White, Stanford, design for Cen- tury Dictionary, 220. Whitman, Mrs., 175, 200. Whitman, Mrs., design for " Strangers and Wayfarers," etc., 210. Willette, M., 245, 248, 255. Woodberry's " History of Wood Engraving," 203. Zaehnsdorf, "Art of Bookbind- ing,'' 10 1, 129. J 94 X4 ■mil 1111111111111111111 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. £ DLQ £4 KCD LD-URl MAY 3 1 1923.\S?V UGl AUG 181985 L9-Series 444 ® REC'D to-um. ^l APR 151991 wm^ym i& J 1199Z' REC'D LD-U.. j 3 1158 00472 646^ UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 198 999 3 1