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Rare Book School
Preliminary Reading List

European Decorative Bookbinding

Mirjam Foot


Preliminary Advices

Items marked * are essential. Read, or browse through, the other items on this list if you have time, before you come to class.


GENERAL


1. Foot, Mirjam M. The Henry Davis Gift, 2 vols. London: The British Library, 1978, 1983.

2. Foot, Mirjam M. Studies in the History of Bookbinding. Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1993.

3. *Goldschmidt, E[rnst]. P. Gothic & Renaissance Bookbindings, 2 vols. London: Ernest Benn/Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928. Especially the introduction.

4. *Needham, Paul. Twelve Centuries of Bookbindings 400-1600. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library/London: Oxford University Press, 1979.

5. Nixon, Howard M. Broxbourne Library. Styles and Designs of Bookbindings from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Century. London: Maggs Brothers, 1956.

6. ______. Sixteenth-Century Gold-tooled Bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1971.


ENGLISH


7. Hobson, G.D. English Bindings 1490-1940 in the Library of J.R. Abbey. London: privately printed, 1940.

8. *Middleton, Bernard C. A History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique. London 1963; second supplemented edn. London: Holland Press, 1978.

9. Nixon, Howard M. Five Centuries of English Bookbinding. London: Scholar Press, 1978.

10. *______, and Mirjam M. Foot. The History of Decorated Bookbinding in England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

11. Oldham, J. Basil. Blind Panels of English Binders. Cambridge University Press, 1958; reprinted NY: Garland, 1990.

12. _____. English Blind-Stamped Bindings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952; reprinted NY: Garland, 1990.

13. Pollard, H. Graham. "Changes in the Style of Bookbinding, 1550-1830," in The Library, 5th ser 11 (1956), 71-94.


EARLY BINDINGS


14. Hobson, G. D. English Binding Before 1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1929.

15. Pollard, Graham. "The Construction of English 12th-Century Bindings," in The Library, 5th ser 17 (1962), 1-22.

16.______. "Some Anglo-Saxon Bookbindings," in The Book Collector 24 (1975), 130-59; use with caution.

17. Roberts, Colin H. and T. C. Skeat. The Birth of the Codex, 2nd edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1987.

18. Szirmai, J. A. The archaeology of medieval bookbinding. Aldershot & Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 1999.


MEDIEVAL/BLIND-TOOLED BINDINGS


19. Foot, Mirjam M. "English Decorated Bookbindings," in Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall, ed. Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375-1475. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 198 9.

20. Gid, Denise. Catalogue des reliures françaises estampées à froid (xve-xvie siècle) de la Bibliothèque Mazarine, 2 vols. Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1984.

21. Pollard, Graham. "The Names of Some English Fifteenth-Century Binders," in The Library 5th ser 25 (1970), 193-218.


FRENCH


22. De Hamel, C[hristopher] F. R. Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origin of the Paris Booktrade. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1984; pp 64-86.

23. Devauchelle, Roger. La reliure en France de ses origines à nos jours, 3 vols. Paris: J. Rousseau-Girard, 1959-61.

24. Devaux, Yves. Dix siècles de reliure. Paris: Editions Pygmalion, 1977; new edn 1981.

25. Gruel, Léon.Manuel historique et bibliographique de l'amateur de reliures, 2 vols. Paris: Gruel & Englemann, 1887, 1905.

26. Laffitte, Marie-Pierre and Fabienne Le Bars. Reliures royales de la Renaissance: La Librarie de Fontainebleau. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1999.

27. Michon, Louis-Marie La reliure française. Paris: Larousse, 1951.

28. _____. Les reliures mosaïquées du XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Société de la Reliure Originale, 1956.

29. [Nixon, Howard M.] Bookbindings from the Library of Jean Grolier. London: British Museum, 1965.

30. Thoinan, Ernest [=Antoine Ernest Rocquet]. Les relieurs français (1500-1800). Paris: Paul, Huard & Guillemin, 1893.


SPANISH


31. Hueso Rolland, Francisco. Exposición de Encuadernaciones Españolas. Madrid: [Blass], 1934 [=1935].

32. Thomas, Henry. Early Spanish Bookbindings. London: The Bibliographical Society, 1939.


ITALIAN


33. Hobson, A[nthony] R. A. Apollo and Pegasus. Amsterdam: Van Heusden, 1975.

34. _____. Humanists and Bookbinders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989./P>

35. Marinis, Tammaro de. La legatura artistica in Italia, 3 vols. Florence: Fratelli Alinari, 1960.


GERMAN


36. Kyriss, Ernst. Verzierte gotische Einbände im alten deutschen Sprachgebiet, 4 vols. Stuttgart: Max Hettler, 1951-58.

37. Rabenau, Konrad von, with Susanne Rothe and Andreas Wittenberg. Deutsche Bucheinbände der Renaissance um Jakob Krause, Hofbuchbinder des Kurfürsten August I. von Sachsen. 2 vols. Brussels: Bibliotheca Wittockiana.