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Rare Book School
Preliminary Reading List

Seminar in the History of Bookbinding

Jan Storm van Leeuwen

Preliminary Advices

Please read or at least look carefully at as many as possible of the following books before coming to Baltimore.

  1. The history of bookbinding 525- 1950 A.D.; an exhibition held at the Baltimore Museum of Art , Nov. 12 1957 to Jan. 12 1958. Introd. Dorothy Miner. Baltimore, 1957.
  2. Mirjam Foot, The history of bookbinding as a mirror of Society. London, 1998 (= The Pannizi lectures 1997)
  3. Mirjam M. Foot, Studies in de history of bookbinding. Aldershot, 1993:
    • ‘Bookbinding and the history of books’, pp. 1-14.
    • ‘Ferrarese woodcut bindings of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries’, pp. 280-285.
    • ‘An English woodcut binding, 1647’, pp. 286-287.
    • ‘Bookbinding patronage in England’, pp. 300-323.
  4. Paul Needham, Twelve centuries of bookbinding, 400-1600. New York, Oxford, 1979.
  5. Jan Storm van Leeuwen, Dutch decorated bookbinding in the eighteenth century. Houten, 2006.
    • Vol. I, chapter 1, pp. 1-138
  6. Bookbindings from the library of Jean Grolier; a loan exhibition , 23 sept. – 31 oct. 1965. [By Howard M. Nixon]. London, 1965.
  7. Marie-Pierre Lafitte, Fabienne Lebars, Reliures royales de la Renaissance ; la librairie de Fontainebleau, 1544-1570. Paris, 1999
  8. Frauke Steenbock, Der kirchliche Prachteinband im frühen Mittelalter; von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Gotik. Berlin, 1965.
  9. Anthony Hobson, Humanists and bookbinders; the origins and diffusion of the humanistic bookbinding 1459-1559 … Cambridge, New York, etc, 1989.
  10. Ruari McLean, Victorian publisher’s book-bindings in cloth and leather. London, 1974.
  11. Ruari McLean, Victorian publisher’s book-bindings in paper, London, 1983.
  12. David Pearson, English bookbinding styles 1450-1800. London, New Castle, 2005.
  13. Sophie Malavielle, Reliures et cartonnages d’éditeur en France au XIXe siëcle (1815-1865). Paris, 1985.
  14. Giles Barber, ‘L’évolution de la couverture imprimée’, in : La bibliographie matérielle, prés. par Roger Laufer. Paris, 1983, pp. 63-74.
  15. Giles Barber, ‘Continental paper wrappers and publisher’s bindings in the eighteenth century’, in: The Book Collector 24 (1975), pp. 37-49.
  16. From Bookbinding & other bibliophily; essays in honour of Anthony Hobson. Ed. Dennis Rhodes. Verona, 1994: