DOI issue:
No. 48 (March, 1897)
DOI article:White, Gleeson: Some recent book-plates, mostly pictorial
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18388#0118
Some Recent Book-plates
HOOK-PLATE BY E. W. WIMPEKIS
be only a book-lover who happens to fish for
pastime, there seems no earthly reason why his
outdoor hobby should be intruded upon his book-
plate. For collectors who " specialise " in many
fields a separate plate designed for each class of
books would be fit. Blessed with a baker's dozen
designs, I find that I use them half-unconsciously,
to denote various degrees of appreciation. A
certain plate by one of the best of living designers
I only paste in books which are not likely to be
discarded in any future weeding out. Another, I
place unhesitatingly in the most ephemeral volumes :
those one lends without thought, and, as a rule,
never sees again. Another, a fanciful theme, goes
well with poets. Another accords with technical
books on art; and yet another seems appropriate
to treatises on social subjects. So essays and
belles-lettres, criticism, biography, humour, and
Japanese monographs, all find special designs not
ill-adapted to their purpose.
114
But with the experience gained by using more
than a dozen plates of various sizes, I feel that
nearly all are needlessly large, and that the ideal
plate, whether rectangular or circular, should not
exceed the size of a man's visiting card, or a five-
shilling piece, and might be even better if half the
dimension of either. Nor for such reduction
would it be satisfactory to reduce the larger designs.
The object should be to simplify the idea until it
was as bold and effective as the St. George and
Dragon on a sovereign, not as crowded as the
obverse of a florin. One might even go still
further and for ordinary " zinco " blocks eschew all
line designs, employing only silhouette or strong
thick outline. A book-plate belonging to a Mr. A.
Bell, reproduced on page 118, which I found in a
presentation copy of one of DalziePs illustrated
books, is an excellent example of a small book-
plate. In this particular instance the name was
clear enough, before a chance inscription in
another part of the volume proved that the solu-
tion of the little rebus was correct.
Stencilled designs are rare, and the difficulty of
using names in full, on a scale at once legible
and neat, must needs limit, if not entirely prohibit,
their use. For, in printed books where all inscrip-
tions are in direct rivalry with the exquisitely
accurate finish of printers' type, it is more than ever
painful to find clumsy letters broken into fragments
BOOK-PLATE BY PAUL WOODROFFE
HOOK-PLATE BY E. W. WIMPEKIS
be only a book-lover who happens to fish for
pastime, there seems no earthly reason why his
outdoor hobby should be intruded upon his book-
plate. For collectors who " specialise " in many
fields a separate plate designed for each class of
books would be fit. Blessed with a baker's dozen
designs, I find that I use them half-unconsciously,
to denote various degrees of appreciation. A
certain plate by one of the best of living designers
I only paste in books which are not likely to be
discarded in any future weeding out. Another, I
place unhesitatingly in the most ephemeral volumes :
those one lends without thought, and, as a rule,
never sees again. Another, a fanciful theme, goes
well with poets. Another accords with technical
books on art; and yet another seems appropriate
to treatises on social subjects. So essays and
belles-lettres, criticism, biography, humour, and
Japanese monographs, all find special designs not
ill-adapted to their purpose.
114
But with the experience gained by using more
than a dozen plates of various sizes, I feel that
nearly all are needlessly large, and that the ideal
plate, whether rectangular or circular, should not
exceed the size of a man's visiting card, or a five-
shilling piece, and might be even better if half the
dimension of either. Nor for such reduction
would it be satisfactory to reduce the larger designs.
The object should be to simplify the idea until it
was as bold and effective as the St. George and
Dragon on a sovereign, not as crowded as the
obverse of a florin. One might even go still
further and for ordinary " zinco " blocks eschew all
line designs, employing only silhouette or strong
thick outline. A book-plate belonging to a Mr. A.
Bell, reproduced on page 118, which I found in a
presentation copy of one of DalziePs illustrated
books, is an excellent example of a small book-
plate. In this particular instance the name was
clear enough, before a chance inscription in
another part of the volume proved that the solu-
tion of the little rebus was correct.
Stencilled designs are rare, and the difficulty of
using names in full, on a scale at once legible
and neat, must needs limit, if not entirely prohibit,
their use. For, in printed books where all inscrip-
tions are in direct rivalry with the exquisitely
accurate finish of printers' type, it is more than ever
painful to find clumsy letters broken into fragments
BOOK-PLATE BY PAUL WOODROFFE