The Description of Bookbindings

Course Description

Intended for catalog librarians, antiquarian booksellers, book collectors, and others who wish to write concise and accurate descriptions of bookbindings, the course will concentrate on bindings produced between the late 15th century and the late 19th century, and it will deal with both bespoke and publishers’ bindings. The description of elaborate presentation and bibliophile bindings will be covered, but the description of non-splendid bindings will not be neglected. Topics include: the materials used in bookbindings; structural and decorative techniques; the description of binding styles; and the relevant literature. The course is restricted to those who either already have taken Jan Storm van Leeuwen’s RBS course B-10 Introduction to the History of Bookbinding or who in their personal statements demonstrate that they have an equivalent knowledge and background in the field. The 2009 November course will be held at the Grolier Club in New York City.

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Advance Reading List

Terminology

1. Roberts, Matt T. [and] Don Etherington. Bookbinding and the conservation of books; a dictionary of descriptive terminology.Washington, 1982.

The best and most comprehensive book in English; the text is also accessible on an Internet-site, which is regularly added to and corrected and therefore more useful than the book: http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/don/toc/toc1.html

1. Jane Greenfield. ABC of bookbinding; a unique glossary with over 700 illustrations for collectors and librarians. New Castle, Carlton, 2002.

Less extensive in its approach as Roberts/Etherington and with drawings instead of photographs but because of those sometimes more clear

1. Binding terms; a thesaurus for use in rare book and special collections cataloguing. Prepared by the Committee of the Rare Book and Manuscript Section. Chicago, 1988.

Important American thesaurus, unfortunately without explanation, and gradually a bit out of date—see also the site of the RBMS:http://www.rbms.info/committees/bibliographic_standards/controlled_vocabularies/index.shtml

 

Description: Books

There is no recent literature in English on the ways in which bindings can be described. The student is advised to study binding descriptions in as many of the following books as possible and to compare them to each other. The authors are all experts in the field, but they have chosen a different approach and different length of the description.

• Paul Needham. Twelve centuries of bookbinding: 400-1600. NY: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1979. Catalog of a celebrated exhibition, and a broad survey of the whole field.
• E. Ph. Goldschmidt. Gothic & Renaissance bookbindings, exemplified and illustrated from the author’s collection. 2 vols. London: Ernest Benn, 1928, rep Nieuwkoop, 1967.
• Dorothy Miner. The History of Bookbinding 525-1950 AD (Exh. Walters Art Gallery). Baltimore, 1957.
• Mirjam M. Foot. The Henry Davis gift: a collection of bookbindings. Vol II: A Catalogue of North-European Bindings. London, 1983.
• Howard M. Nixon. Sixteenth-century gold-tooled bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York, 1981.
• Marianne Tidcombe. The bookbindings of T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, a study of his work 1884-1893 … London, 1984.
• Marianne Tidcombe. The Doves Bindery. London, New Castle, 1991.
• Jan Storm van Leeuwen. Dutch decorated bookbinding in the eighteenth century. ‘t Goy-Houten, 2006. 3 vols. in 4 bindings. Vol III. Read pp. 1-2, study pp. 629-635, 813-825.
• Frederick A. Bearman, Nati Krivatsy, J. Franklin Mowery. Fine and historic bookbindings from the Folger Shakespeare Library. Washington, 1992.

 

The Bookbinder

• Mirjam M. Foot, Bookbinders at work; their roles and methods. London, New Castle 2006. Very useful and important book for those who want to understand the way the historian looks at the craft and uses the terms.

Description: Sites

 

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Course History