B-50. Advanced Seminar in the History of Bookbinding

Jan Storm van Leeuwen

This course is aimed at librarians, cataloguers, curators, conservators, collectors, and book dealers who preferably have already taken at least one RBS binding course. The class will deal with selected topics in the history of European and American bookbinding from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. In 2013 the topics covered will include: some French collectors and their bindings, English Restoration bindings, Gosden and bindings on angling books, publishers' bindings from the Historism period and C19 imitations compared to the originals. The course will also deal with topics of bookbinding study, like tool research, binders' signatures, terminology, and description of bindings. Apart from several PowerPoint presentations, the course will make use of originals from the collections of Rare Book School and the University of Virginia special collections library. It will be a hands-on course, as much as possible.

In their personal statements, students are invited to describe particular interests in bookbinding history and topics that they would like to see addressed in this or future sessions of the course.

Course Resources

Course History