Studio: international art (2.1894)

The Art of Bookbinding

The book must open easily, shut easily, and re- numerable other horrors of a like kind, the delight
main open with the leaves down at any page the of the lightning-like clothier, kill the book, which
reader may choose. But how can. this be, if the ought rather to come alive and untouched into
book is made, not of paper, but of paper-like the hands of the binder. From the first to last its
cardboard ? For instance, the paper in a volume ultimate destination, a bound-book, should be
this size (taking one up about the dimensions of kept in mind: for a book is not a book till it is
The Studio), thick as it is, is all right in its place, permanently bound. But the publisher is, too
the weight of the page keeps it down; but in such a often, a mere infanticide, he kills his book at its
book as this (pointing to a charming edition on birth."
Japanese vellum, which is the
blue riband of modern collec-
tors) the page is too stiff for its
size, and it is simply impossible
to bind the book so that it shall
lie open at any given page in
the way a well - bound book
should. Unless the flexibility
of the paper is in due relation
to the size of the book, it is
impossible to bind the book pro-
perly."

" Is Japanese vellum the chief
offender ? "

" I think not. Here, for in-
stance, is the hand-made paper
of a well-known English house
hideously misapplied. This is a
work in many volumes, and some
of the volumes have but half as
many pages as the others, and
yet all the volumes, as you see,
are of the same thickness. How ?
Because the paper is twice as
thick in the volumes with fewer
pages, so thick, in fact, as to be
in such a place a monstrosity,
apart from the difficulty put in
the way of the binder. And
why ? Because the publisher
must have present uniformity at from the original binding by t. j. cobden-sanderson

any sacrifice of the ultimate binding, uniformity of " For all books destined for a more than tem-

size for uniformity of price, and uniformity of porary life, what binding then would you prefer ? "

size to fit the uniform cloth-cover." " For the majority none at all ! But if it be irri-

" Yes, I understand. Are there any other need- practicable to send them out in the loose sheets

less difficulties put in the way of good binding?" —technically known as 'quires'—then I would

" A great many. I have complained of the have, for books ultimately to be bound, merely

paper. I would now protest against the processes stitches and a paper wrapper, such as the French

employed in cloth binding. Sawing great furrows most often use."

across the back, sewing with machines, which cut " Have you no trouble with the folding of the

through the section at head and tail, stabbing and sheets ? "

1 sewing' with wire which rusts and destroys, " Not so much perhaps with the actual folding

pasting sheet upon sheet and overcasting, or shear- as with careless printing, which no good folding

ing the back off altogether and reducing the book can correct. In theory, each head-line of a book

to the semblance of a pack of cards—these and in- should overlay its fellow, so that if you ran a
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