Rare Book School
Please bring a magnifying glass or loup that enlarges ca. 5×, 7×, or 10× to class with you. Bring photographs, rubbings or photocopies of publishers' bindings that have special interest or meaning for you.
I The books and articles listed below are standard works many of you may be familiar with. An acquaintance with them is a good preparation for our class discussions:
Allen, Sue. "Floral-patterned Endpapers in Nineteenth-Century American Books," in Winterthur Portfolio 12 (1977): 183-224.
______. "Machine-Stamped Bookbindings, 1834-1860," in Antiques 115 (March 1979): 564-572; reprinted in Guild of Book Workers Journal 18 (1979-80): 1-23.
Allen, Sue and Charles Gullans. Decorated Cloth in America: Publishers' Bindings, 1840-1910 (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1994).
Ball, Douglas. Victorian Publishers' Binding (Williamsburg, VA: Bookpress, 1985).
Comparato, Frank E. Books for the Millions (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1971).
Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography (London: Oxford Univ Press, 1972; corr edn 1974; several times reprinted, most re cently (1995) in paperback by Oak Knoll Books): 230-250 ("Edition Binding").
Gullans, Charles B. and John J. Espey. "American Trade Bindings and Their Designers 1880-1915," in Collectible Books, ed Jean Peters (New York: Bowker, 1979): 32-67.
McLean, Ruari. Victorian Publishers' Book-Bindings in Cloth and Leather (Berkeley: University of CA, 1973).
Tanselle, G. Thomas. "A System of Color Identification for Bibliographical Description," in Studies in Bibliography 20 (1967): 203-34. (Full text available online via this link.)
______. "The Bibliographical Description of Patterns," in Studies in Bibliography 23 (1970): 71-102. Both Tanselle pieces are reprinted in his Selected Studies in Bibliography (Charlottesville: Univ of VA, 1979). (Full text available online via this link.)
Wolf, Edwin, 2d. From Gothic Windows to Peacocks: American Embossed Leather Bindings, 1825-1855 (Philadelphia: Library Company, 1990) .
II This biography of a leading publisher gives excellent background material as to audience and economic factors:
Tryon, Warren S. Parnassus Corner: A Life of James T. Fields, Publisher to the Victorians (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963).
III A valuable study from the recent "history of the book" publications is: