PUBLISHER'S DECORATIVE CLOTH BINDINGS 1850-1920

by

Matthew Franklin Nickerson

Submitted to The

School of Library and Information Sciences

Brigham Young University

Provo, Utah

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements of

L. I. S. 694R

Instructor: Nathan M. Smith

June 1990

Preface

My interest in publisher's decorative cloth bindings began

during a book deterioration survey I conducted at Brigham Young

University's Harold B. Lee Library. This survey involved

collecting a random sample of books from the library's

collection. During my wandering though the stacks collecting

books for the study my eye was often drawn to books on the

shelves which had finely decorated bindings. These books seemed

to be published mostly around the turn of the century and had

cloth covers that were printed with gold often in combination

with colored inks. I was fascinated by these books and wanted to

know more about them. My research into the history and artistic

significance of these types of bindings is reported in this

paper.

In addition to researching the literature I spent

considerable time reading the shelves of older Dewey classified

sections of the library in search of hands-on examples to

punctuate and enlighten my intellectual pursuit. I found this

method to be very helpful and it contributed significantly to my

understanding of this subject.

PUBLISHER'S DECORATIVE CLOTH BINDINGS 1850-1920

Introduction

In tracing the history of printing and publishing the

decorative cloth bindings of the Victorian age hold an important

place in the timeline. They are a direct product of both the

Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and reflect the

growth of a literate middle class and the mechanization of

manufacturing. Book design was a major contributor to important

artistic movements of that time, among them, Victorian Design,

Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. The development of graphic and

commercial art and the advance of new reproduction methods such

as photography and lithography all owe much of their beginning

work to publishers and book designers.

The value of these bindings as cultural artifacts is generally ignored today by artists and librarians alike. Their important contributions in the advance of publishing, bibliography, the graphic arts and modern art deserves more recognition and study.

A Brief History

The great political, social and economic changes of the

early 1800's mark a major cultural shift in western civilization.

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The virtues of the scientific method and the power of the human

mind pervaded Europe and America. The right and duty of the

common man to think for himself were basic to both the American

and French Revolutions. This rise of a literate middle class was

fueled by a publishing and printing industry that was at the

forefront of the mechanized manufacturing of the Industrial

Revolution.

Since the invention of moveable type the goal of the

industry was always to make more books, faster and cheaper. To

answer this challenge came the invention of machine made paper,

and mechanized printing in many forms. The single biggest

discovery which radically changed the potential output by book

manufacturers was the development of cloth as a covering for

books to replace leather.

As water and steam driven machines were employed in making books the number of volumes which a printer could produce increased dramatically. To keep up with the printer's demand machine made paper technology continued to expand. The binders too, had to increase their operations and in the early 1820's it was clear to forward thinking minds within that industry that leather production for book binding could not keep up with the fast pace of printing. It was clear some new material must be found for covering the boards of bound books.

Cloth Bindings

Cloth became the material of choice almost overnight.

Pickering, a London publisher, is usually given credit for

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producing the first mass produced edition of a completely cloth

bound volume sometime in 1820. By 1830 cloth bindings were

common and publishers were advertising this new product (Ball

1985, 12). In the early stages these bindings were rather plain

but the manufacturers soon found ways to make these bindings more

attractive and marketable.

The first decorations for cloth bindings were in the form of

"graining" or "blind blocking" where a repeated pattern was

pressed into covered boards using a heavy roller. Initially this

was to hide the thread patterns and to make the cloth covering

appear more like leather but as the cloth bindings became more

accepted in the marketplace the graining became more decorative

(McLean 1973, 7). By 1850 the works of many major publishers

could be identified simply by the type of cloth and patterning in

the cover such as Tichnor, Reed and Fields' brown ribbed cloth

bindings [Book #16] (Allen 1979, 567).

Cloth bindings and the development of the means for graining them resulted in the single biggest advance in book making since moveable type: the case binding. The traditional leather binding process used until the 1820's was to gather the printed sheets into folded packets of approximately eight pages each. These groups, or signatures, were then folded down the middle and sewn together through the crease. The sewn signatures were joined to create the text block of the book by sewing them in sequence onto chords. The sewn book was protected by attaching cardboard or wooden covers, known as boards, to the front and back of the text block, by tying them to the text using the chords. The book was then completed by covering the boards with a single piece of leather that also covered the chords along the spine.

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Case Bindings

In order to grain a cloth cover it was necessary to pass the

cover under a heavy roller which embossed the pattern into the

yielding cloth and boards. Obviously this was impossible if the

boards were already attached to the text block. Thus was born

the revolutionary process of case binding. As the name implies

the case, or cover, is made separately from the text block. This

process makes it impossible to tie the boards directly to the

text with the chords because the boards are already covered.

With a case binding then, the text block is joined to the cover

usually only by means of the endpapers. As with all

"innovations" of the industrial age case bindings improved

production output at the expense of reduced binding quality (Ball

1985, 20).

The invention and perfection of mechanized case binding

opened a whole new era in cover design and decoration. Binders

soon discovered that the old methods of decorating leather

bindings by embossing them with engraved metal blocks and gold

leaf could be readily adapted to the new cloth binding industry.

With the case lying flat it was possible to add graining and

decoration quickly and relatively cheaply.

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Two of the pioneers of this work before 1850 were Archibald Leighton and Joseph Cundall. Leighton perfected a cloth specifically made for binding and Cundall was the foremeost among the first publishers to recognize book design as a fine art and to take pride in a well laid out and decorated binding (McLean 1963, 111).

The Victorian Era

By the beginning of the Victorian era many methods of

decorating cloth bindings had been perfected and this age's love

of "elaboration and eclecticism" took full advantage of the new

binder's arts (Otis 1977, 3). Book covers were decorated with

blind stamped design, gold and silver (aluminum) blocking, and

colored inks.

The beginnings were marked by over abundant elaboration with little symmetry or thought to overall design. With the rise in advertising came the need for eye catching covers and colored inks and gold blocking took precedence over art and design (Winterich 1958, ix). Font types were often mixed on the title page with little regard for balance or relation and the effect was multiplied by combining red and black inks. Illustrations were usually the product of many artists and little or no effort was made to match the styles or coordinate the pictures with the type (Otis 1977, 3).

Fine Book Designs

The first true book designers emerged in England in the

1850's. Their work was marked by an overall view of the book.

Cover design, illustrations, and font type were all chosen to

harmonize with the book's contents. For the first time an effort

was made to match the cover design with the contents of the book

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instead of relying on a set library of interchangeable blocking

tools. The covers of the period usually exhibit a biaxial

symmetry and evidence of conscious artistic design [Book #5]

(Ball 1985, 49). A beautiful and innovative technique was to

add cloth overlays of a color different from the rest of the

binding [Book #7]. A more lavish cover was deeply engraved or

molded using a paper-mache type material sometimes called a

roccoco binding [Book #2].

The preeminent book designer of the time was John Leighton.

He was only one of a family of Leighton's descended from

Archibald Leighton that were active contributors to the

improvement of the publishing trade. John was a prolific graphic

designer and his work extended beyond book covers to Christmas

cards, stained glass, and bank-notes. It is estimated that he

designed more than 1000 covers and many are signed with his

initials [Books #1, #3 and #4]. He was especially adept at

utilizing the light and dark contrast of gold blocking on dark

cloth and highlighting gold with black ink (Pantazzi 1963, 263).

Many credit him with inventing this technique which was quickly

copied and is a hall mark of the 1860's (Ball 1985, 45). The

fine work by Leighton and his contemporaries has led many

historians to list decorative book covers as among the most

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beautiful massed produced objects of the Victorian Era (McLean

1973, 10).

Though slightly behind the times fine book covers were being

designed in America as well. Casually at first and then later

with greater zeal, publishers began seeking out well-known

artists to design their covers. Among the first notable

designers in the 1880's were Edwin Austin Abbey, Howard Pyle, and

George Wharton Edwards [Book #20] (Gullans and Espey 1979, 36).

By the 1870's the Victorian age was waning and the increase

in mass production took its toll on book design in Great Britain.

Continuing the love of gilt and filigree of the earlier time

without the careful design made for a general decline and

degeneration. Gold began to be replaced in some degree by new

colored inks. Distinguished work in trade bindings did not

resume in-full until the 1890's. America, already trying to

break from ties with English publishers and the pressure of the

English standard did not suffer so greatly from this post

Victorian "bad taste."

Modern Art

A reawakening in fine book design was a key element in the

formation of the new art trends popular in the close of the 19th

century. In reaction to the Romantic, over decoration of the

Victorian age came the more restrained Aesthetic Arts Movement

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and a return to Middle Age design and utilitarianism with the

Arts and Crafts Movement.

The principle figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement was

William Morris and his return to gothic styles and ornament at

his Kelmscott print shop was a landmark for the movement. His

love for the Middle Ages and his books' reflection of incunabula

texts are typical of Arts and Craft style (Otis 1977, 19). The

contribution of book design to this new art form was tremendous.

The experiments and enlightenment of the turn of the century

saw the rise of many art forms, Arts and Crafts, Aesthetic, and

Pre-Raphealites to name a few, but all intermingled and shared in

the creation of what many call the first truly original modern

art form, Art Nouveau.

Again, book design played a significant role in the defining

of this modern art. Critics John Russell Taylor and Robert

Schmutzler both indicate that British Art Nouveau is best

expressed in the book design of the time (Denney 1987, 78).

Where the Arts and Crafts Movement's contributions to book design

was limited to small hand-press editions, Art Nouveau covers were

incorporated in publisher's trade bindings and a new wave of

artistic designing can be seen.

American designers were especially prolific during this time

working with the more traditional gold blocking but more often

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with multi-colored inks. This leap in designer bindings was

short lived. The business of designing and printing decorative

cloth bindings died "in a month" when the illustrated paper book

jacket was introduced in 1908. Even so the first twenty years of

the 20th century produced a multitude of fine bindings from the

hands of many very talented designers.

In general designs of this period are wholly flat, and use a

purposeful two dimensional line typical of Art Nouveau. It is

interesting to note that many of America's great designers were

women and this was an area where they were allowed to grow,

perform and excel. Sarah de St.Prix Wyman Whitman helped to

revamp the aesthetics of book covers in the 20th century. Like

many fine designers before her, her unique vision and style were

so quickly copied that it is difficult to distinguish her later

work from other fine designers, but this emulation is her

greatest tribute. Her movement away from the dark cloths of the

past to lighter, brighter cloth was a trend soon taken up across

the business. Stylized plant motifs that are simple and striking

along with fluid lines and freer type fonts are typical of Art

Nouveau (Meggs 1983, 220) and her work holds striking examples of

this type. Other fine examples of these early 1900's cover

designs can be found in the work of Margaret Nielsen Armstrong

[Book #12], Amy Sacker [Book #1] and Amy Richards [Book #15].

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Conclusion

It is important to recognize the contributions made by book

designers to the growth of art and culture in the West. In the

Industrial Age many publishers were among the first to realize

that mass production did not have to mean boring, gawdy, or ugly.

Designer publisher's bindings have contributed some of the finest

artistic endeavors in Victorian design, Arts and Crafts, and Art

Nouveau.

Librarians can take the lead in recognizing the importance

of decorated publisher's cloth bindings and help bring a new

awareness and appreciation for them to bibliophiles, readers, and

library goers. Because many of the finest examples of this art

form are under the care of librarians it is critical for them to

appreciate their worth as cultural artifacts. The period of time

when the covers were produced corresponds to the time when

machine made paper was of particularly poor quality. Much of the

paper made then is now highly deteriorated, brittle and

disintegrating. Because many of the publisher's bindings here

discussed are on fiction and popular literature their value is

often deemed questionable when the paper is unusable. Those who

appreciate the quality of well designed covers and their place in

history will realize that in many such cases the covers are far

more valuable than the texts they enclose and the book should be

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saved not for it's written contents but to preserve it's cover as

an artistic work.

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WORKS CITED

Allen Sue. 1979. "Machine-stamped Bookbindings, 1834-1860." Antiques March: 564-71.

Ball, Douglas. 1985. Victorian Publisher's Bindings. Cambridge: University Press.

Denney, Colleen. 1987. "English Book Designers and the Role of the Modern Book at L'Art Nouveau." Arts Magazine 61 (May): 76-83.

Gullens, Charles and John Espey. 1979. "American Trade Bindings and Their Designers, 1880-1915." In Peters, Jean, ed. Collectible Books. N.Y.: R.R. Bowker.

McLean, Rauri. 1963 Victorian Book Designs and Colour Printing. N.Y.: Oxford University Press.

McLean, Rauri. 1973. Victorian Publisher's Book Bindings in Cloth and Leather. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Meggs, Phillip B. 1983. A History of Graphic Design. Cincinnati: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Otis, Susan. 1977. American Book Design and William Morris. N.Y.: R.R. Bowker.

Pantazzi, Sybille. 1963. "John Leighton, 1822-1912." Connoisseur 152 (April): 262-73.

Winterich, John T. 1958. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Facsimile of the William Morris Kelmscott Chaucer. Cleveland: World.

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A LIST OF EXAMPLES OF DESIGNER PUBLISHER'S CLOTH BINDINGS FROM THE

B.Y.U. HAROLD B. LEE LIBRARY STACKS

British

1 Jerrold, Douglas. The Story of a Leaf. London: Bradburg, Evans, 1867.BYU# 827.81 St76bDesigner: John Leighton

2 Moore, Thomas. Moore's Poetical Works. London: Gall and Ingalls.BYU# 821.758 G13Designer: Unknown

3 White, L.B. English Sacred Poetry of the Oldentime. London: Religious Tract Society, 1864.BYU# 821.08 W58Designer: John Leighton

4 Pigot, Richard. The Life of Man. London: Longmas, Green, Readof, Dyer, 1866.

BYU# 808.88 P629lDesigner: John Leighton

5 Wells, W.H. Poet's Wit and Humor. London: Joseph Cundall, BYU# 821.08 W685pDesigner: Robert Dudley

American

6 Alcott, Louisa May. Jack and Jill. Boston: Little, Brown, 1905.BYU# 813.41 J12lDesigner: Amy Sacker

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7 Bates, Charlotte Fiske. Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song. N.Y.: Crowell, 1882.BYU# 821.08 B31c

8 Camden, John. The Hundredth Acre. Boston: Herbert B. Turner, 1905.BYU# 813 C14hDesigner: Henry McCarter (?)

9 Carmen, Bliss. The Kingship of Nature. Boston: L.C. Page, 1903.BYU# 814 C211kDesigner: Frederick Holland Day (?)

10 Cataigne, Andre. Fata Morgana. N.Y. The Century Co., 1904.BYU# 813 C274Designer: Decorative Designers

11 Clarke, Helen A. Ancient Myths in Modern Poets. N.Y.: Baker and Taylor, 1910.BYU# 809.1 C553aDesigner: Bertha Stuart

12 Dunbar, Paul Laurence. Li'l' Gal. N.Y.: Dodd, Mead, 1904.BYU# 811 D91lgDesigner: Margaret Armstrong

13 Frederick, Harold. The Market Place. Boston: Frederick Stokes, 1899.BYU# 813 F87mDesigner: Frank Berkeley Smith

14 Hobbs, John Oliver. The Ambassador. Cambridge: University Press, 1898.BYU# 812 C844aDesigner: Will Bradley (?)

15 Holland, J.G. Titcomb's Letters. N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910.BYU# 814.34 T53sDesigner: Amy Richards

16 Holmes, Oliver Wendell. The Professor at the Breakfast Table. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1859.

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17 Lahee, Henry C. The Organ and it's Masters. Boston: L.C. Page,BYU# 780.92 L13oDesigner: Amy M. Sacker

18 Lucas, Edward V. The Friendly Town. N.Y.: Henry Holt, 1906.BYU# 828 L962fDesigner: Bertha Stuart

19 Moses, Montrose J. Famous Actor's Families in America. N.Y.: Thomas Crowell, 1906.BYU# 792.092 M85Designer: Edward Stratton Hollaway

20 Old English Ballads. N.Y.: MacMillan, 1896.BYU# 821.04 B644Designer: George Wharton Edwards

21 Olmstead, A.T., History of Assyria. N.Y.: Scribners, 1923.BYU# 935 Ol5hDesigner: Decorative Designers

22 Roosevelt, Theodore. The Roosevelt Book. N.Y.: Scribner's Sons, 1914.BYU# 814 R67hDesigner: Mary Armstrong

23 Stang, Lewis C. Famous Actors. Boston: L.C. Page, 1900BYU# 792.092 St82fDesigner: Amy Richards

24 Twain, Mark. Following the Equator. Hartford: American, 1897.BYU# 817.44 F72aDesigner: Frank Berkeley Smith

25 Whittier, John Greenleaf. The Tent on the Beach. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899. BYU# 811.368 H81tDesigner: Margaret Armstrong

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