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hen discussing the housing of history, creating a safe and protective
environment for the written word is paramount. Bookbinding has
Wchanged over the years, but the preservation of historic tomes
through a better understanding of their construction allows us to see history as
it was reported through memoirs, academic materials, and stories created at the
time it was taking place. While the content may be truth or fiction (depending
upon the writer and his/her experience), the written word is the link between
then and now. Here is “Collecting Old and Rare Books” writer Jim Dawson’s
tutorial on binding construction and care.

The protective cover of a book is its binding. This is usually a thin but
hard pasteboard type of material covered with paper, cloth, or leather, and
nowadays, imitation leather (which is made from the skins of imaginary
animals?). Quality books have had leather bindings for hundreds of years.
Books can be collected just for their bindings either because of the decorative
value of the bindings or because of who bound them.
The parts of a book’s
binding are easy to see but
awkward to describe just with
words. Let’s start with the
spine, which is the narrow
part that you see when the
book is placed on a bookshelf.
It usually has the title and
author printed on it for iden-
tification. The spine is
attached to the front and
back covers of the book by
hinges, the outer hinges are
made of whatever the book is
bound in but without the hard inner backing so that the leather cloth or paper
Book that hold the covers on is flexible which allows them to be opened, and the
inner hinges are normally formed by the flexible center of the front and rear
endpapers inside the book that is glued to the block of pages, one half called
Bindings the pastedown which is glued to the inside of the cover and the other half is
loosely called the free front endpaper which acts as a page.
Better quality leather-
Bound bound books bound by Example of signed bindings on a book
better quality binders are
often in what is called “signed
For bindings.” A signed leather
bookbinding doesn’t mean
that it was actually auto-
History graphed by the binder, but
that the binder signed the
binding with a tiny gilt stamp
of the binder's name. You
by Jim Dawson often see this stamping on the inside of the front cover at the top or bottom
or on the end paper. As I said, it is small so you really have to look for it.
Riviere is one of the better-known names who worked in London in the 19th
century and whose business was carried on
by his son. An 1823 book in original
Up until the early 1800s, books didn’t plain boards
always come already bound from the
printer. Often they came in “boards”
which would be the stiff, plain unfinished
board covers with no covering on them. If
you were wealthy (and who else would
have been buying books at that time) your
bookbinder would bind the book to your
requirements, even stamping your coat of
arms on the fancy cover or your choice.
Books became much more affordable in
the 19th century and usually were bought
already bound in more affordable bindings.
Books could be offered in a choice of
bindings limited only to the size of your
purse. The leather bindings on books can
come in several different formats for

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