Originally printed books were sold without bindings – either the bookseller would get a few bound at a time as he sold them, or buyers would buy the book as a collection of pages, perhaps with a paper binding, and then get it bound themselves (perhaps to suit their wallpaper!). With the Industrial Revolution and an ever-increasing number of books being sold to a wider and wider audience, it became more usual for publishers to organise bookbinding and for the books to be sold already bound.
At first glance this copy of Day Dreams is a handsome book with its blue cloth covers and half-leather binding (leather corners and spine). On the spine “Day Dreams” is gold-stamped on black and there are raised bands that evoke mediaeval binding techniques. Blind stamping of elegant rolls on the edge of the leather adds to the look and the edges of the pages are speckled in red. Given how elaborate and extravagant the ornamentation of bindings got in the mid-nineteenth century, this is very restrained decoration, though the use of leather indicates this wasn't the cheapest binding option.
Then we look a little closer.
This is certainly not the complete original binding. The blue cloth was added later – rather inexpertly at that, for the corners are poorly done, the rolls on the leather are often half covered, and the edges are now fraying. After the blue cloth was added fresh pastedowns were glued over top of the original endpapers. The traces of the earlier binding are of another cloth binding in dark green.
Then we look a little closer.
This is certainly not the complete original binding. The blue cloth was added later – rather inexpertly at that, for the corners are poorly done, the rolls on the leather are often half covered, and the edges are now fraying. After the blue cloth was added fresh pastedowns were glued over top of the original endpapers. The traces of the earlier binding are of another cloth binding in dark green.
Binders began to use cloth over board covers in the nineteenth century: cloth was easier to work with than leather (therefore cheaper), but sturdier than paper wrappers. This is a case binding, where boards, spine, and cloth are assembled separately and then attached to the "textblock" of the paper. America was importing English book cloth during the nineteenth century, so the original binding here was probably sourced from the British Isles.
Other copies supposedly of this edition often describe the binding as red, never green (though I can find no photos), so even the earlier binding is potentially not the original binding – or, as previously noted, the “edition” is not a single set, so perhaps the different impressions were bound differently, or maybe there was a choice between cheaper (red, full cloth) and more expensive (green, half-leather) bindings.
Under the new cloth is the imprint, very faint, of an oval shape embossed on the earlier binding. What it is, I have no idea. A publisher's mark, a binder's mark, a bit of miscellaneous decoration? It's too faint to tell. |
The signatures were stitched and then glued together before the case binding was put on. As you can see the binding has begun to come apart.
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This video of a modern bookbinder rebinding a book demonstrates some of the traditional techniques that would have been used in creating Day Dreams’ cover. Binding was the last of the book-making processes to be automated, and other than a press used for stamping and embossing (and even that was a hand press) all the sewing, gluing, and other work of binding Day Dreams was done by hand. |
For more information see:
Beauty for Commerce: Publishers’ Bindings, 1830-1910. http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=3352
Good exhibition of publishers’ bindings through the nineteenth century, from the coarse cloth or paper over boards of the eighteenth century to the turn of the century with explanations of changing styles and technologies.
See a lovely collection of C19 bindings at
http://www.lib.msu.edu/exhibits/bindings/pages/early19century.jsp
http://www.lib.msu.edu/exhibits/bindings/pages/late19century.jsp
Book sewing frame. http://www.aboutbookbinding.com/binding/Book-Sewing-Frame.html
An explanation of how to use the sewing frame used to sew a book together.
Case binding. http://www.aboutbookbinding.com/binding/Binding-Book-3.html
How case bindings are put together.
Beauty for Commerce: Publishers’ Bindings, 1830-1910. http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=3352
Good exhibition of publishers’ bindings through the nineteenth century, from the coarse cloth or paper over boards of the eighteenth century to the turn of the century with explanations of changing styles and technologies.
See a lovely collection of C19 bindings at
http://www.lib.msu.edu/exhibits/bindings/pages/early19century.jsp
http://www.lib.msu.edu/exhibits/bindings/pages/late19century.jsp
Book sewing frame. http://www.aboutbookbinding.com/binding/Book-Sewing-Frame.html
An explanation of how to use the sewing frame used to sew a book together.
Case binding. http://www.aboutbookbinding.com/binding/Binding-Book-3.html
How case bindings are put together.