II
Although the chief place to study bookbinders and their craft is naturally London, there are several provincial centres where it flourishes, and where it has been touched by that movement for developing the artistic as well as the business side which we noticed in the previous chapter. In large country towns it is impossible for work to be as much specialized as it is in London; consequently a large bindery will do business of a most miscellaneous kind, embracing everything from pamphlets to fine-tooled morocco bindings, and including albums, ledgers, library and school books for prizes. Mr. Fazakerly in Liverpool, Mr. Birdsall in Northampton, and Mr. Chivers in Bath, all have establishments more or less of this kind.
10. Bound by Fazakerly.
11. Bound by Fazakerly.
Mr. Fazakerly was one of the first binders, certainly outside of London, who refused to support the excessive competition in cheapness, and who struck out a department in which fine work could be executed at prices that were remunerative and not prohibitive. Happily the result of his efforts shows the success of a refusal to pander to that desire for cutting prices which has done so much to ruin the crafts on their artistic side. For some time after he had educated his workmen to the responsibility of his new venture, he found that the taste of his customers lay towards a reproduction of old models, but he has of late been quite successful in directing it on to new lines. One feature may be noted in connexion with the morocco work of Mr. Fazakerly, namely, that the under cover is rarely decorated with the same design as the upper. If the lower cover is left quite plain, the effect is poor, and suggests that trouble has been spared on the book as a whole; but there is no reason for the convention, almost universally adopted, whereby the two sides are entirely alike. The same tools and elements of design should appear in each cover, only disposed in different schemes of ornament, and such variation naturally implies more thought, the thought that avoids repetition. One of Mr. Fazakerly’s innovations was the employment of embossed leather, which has since spread to many other houses; and another which he considers a specialty of his business is the decoration of the edges of books, both by means of tooling on them or gauffering, as it is more generally called, and also by painting underneath the gold. We may recall that in the sixteenth century this extension of ornament to the leaves of a book was very prevalent, and was only one of many indications that the workman spent ungrudging time and thought on the details of what was intended to be a work of art throughout.[[3]] Some very fine specimens of gauffered edges may be seen on the works of Luther in seven folio volumes, dated Jena 1572–1581, now in South Kensington Museum. The volumes being very thick offer fine scope for ornament, which consists of the shield of Saxony painted in the centre of each foredge, the rest of the space being filled with arabesques and Renaissance ornaments. And there is, we believe, still in this country part of the library that once belonged to Odonico Pillone of Belluno, comprising some hundred and forty folios with foredges painted by the hand of Cesare Vecellio, a nephew of Titian.[[4]]
The painting of edges was revived in England, and reappears in thoroughly native style on books of the latter half of the eighteenth century. Charming little English landscapes are to be found on some of them, which, as the painting is done when the leaves are fanned out and held in that expanded position, are not in evidence when the book is shut, but when open appear at once. The name of William Edwards of Halifax and his son James is especially associated with this work, and their books are not very rare. Mr. Fazakerly has done a great deal of this decoration, which requires certain conditions to ensure success. The painter must be an artist, and the paper on which he works should be rather thin than thick; the modern fashion of printing on a sort of cardboard handicaps the binder not only in this, but other and far more important ways. Mr. Fazakerly has also made some innovations in ‘doublures,’ a term applied to the inside face of the boards when lined with leather or decorative material. In the matter of doublures the last word has not been said, and there is still room for experiment. The French custom of violent-coloured watered silks or equally salient inlays has never found much favour in this country; but there has been a great dearth both of invention and taste in dealing with this feature of a binding. Some of Zaehnsdorf’s doublures have silk either of the same colour as the cover, or in harmony with it, and he has tried Russia leather with considerable success. Unsuitable as it is for the outside cover from its tendency to rapid deterioration, it makes a very good board lining, and can be employed as well for the flyleaf opposite; indeed, it is better where possible that doublure and flyleaf should be the same. It is with calf that Mr. Fazakerly has made his innovation, and when delicately tinted and incised, but not embossed, the results seem pleasant and appropriate. On books relating to Japan, the number of which is largely on the increase, some of the coloured Japanese embossed papers make excellent doublures. Before dismissing this subject, we may mention the attempt of Mr. Bagguley, a binder at Newcastle-under-Lyme, to tool on vellum in colour. Some of this work, designed by Léon Solon and Miss Talbot, is very delicate and attractive; so delicate, in fact, that it is only suitable for the inside of a book. His patterns are composed chiefly of gouge and line work, as no effect of solid mass can be apparently got in the colour, and the effect is enhanced by dots and other small tools worked in gold. The excessively detailed nature of this work, which is made up of ‘tools’ small and light in character, heavier dies not being suitable for the stamping of colour, render it costly of execution, but there is no doubt that its occasional use offers a desirable variation on the ordinary inside lining. It is difficult to close this subject without a few words in condemnation of the coloured papers used by most binders for ordinary work which does not admit of anything more elaborate. It is time they gave up the German marbled patterns, the French ‘combs,’ and even the spirit marbles which produce the effect of violent colour thrown on wet blotting-paper and appear to be the latest fashion of monstrosity in such things. Good white handmade papers or vellum papers are the most suitable, while if coloured ones are deemed essential, the French and Van Gelder crayon papers toning harmoniously with the morocco are not likely to be an offence.
12. Bound by Chivers.
13. Bound by Chivers.
The business of Messrs. Birdsall at Northampton takes us to another centre of provincial activity in binding, and it has an especial interest in being one of the oldest bookbinding businesses in the country. It has been in the hands of the present proprietors’ family well over a hundred years, and has a connected history since 1757, when John Lacy, a banker of Northampton, acquired it and associated with it a bookselling business which he had also in the town. On giving up work in 1792 he sold both to William Birdsall, a Yorkshireman by birth, who had settled there, and in this family it has remained ever since. We spoke before of the varied nature of the work carried out by country binders, and on Messrs. Birdsall’s premises we find a department of manufacturing stationery, another for the wholesale paper trade, a third for commercial bindings in which are included certain special registered bindings patented for serial work, such as the ‘Stronghold’ and ‘Biblia fortis,’ suitable for free libraries where the usage is rough and constant, and lastly, one set apart for highly finished leather and vellum books. The works are always kept in the highest state of efficiency, and the workmen are encouraged to excel in skilled and conscientious work. Many of these have passed a lifetime there, and though the business is not of a co-operative character, a bonus is distributed to the older and more efficient workers at the end of the year.
14. Bound by the Oxford University Press.
Mr. Chivers, of Bath, has brought an unusual amount of originality and enthusiasm into the service of his craft. His father was a binder there before him, and the son, after working with Chatelain in London, decided to settle in his native town. For some time his specialty was a binding for public libraries patented under the name of ‘Duro-flexile,’ and this, together with other library appliances, brought him a connexion with librarians all over the country who were occupied with the problems presented by the particular nature of their work. He has brought considerable invention to bear upon these problems, and in certain cases it is not likely that a more satisfactory solution will be found than that which he has introduced. Besides these practical matters he has made certain styles of decorating book covers especially his own, and one of these he has developed with considerable success. This consists in a scheme whereby designs are painted on paper and then covered with transparent vellum, so that there is no limit to the colour effect that may be produced. We have already mentioned James Edwards, of Halifax, who settled in 1784 as a bookseller in Pall Mall, and whose love of books caused him to direct his coffin to be made from the shelves of his libraries. In 1785 he took out a patent ‘for embellishing books bound in vellum and making drawings on the vellum which are not liable to be defaced by destroying the vellum itself.’ The description further contained in the patent has never been found possible of imitation, which may or may not have been intentional on his part. The British Museum shows a Prayer-Book bound by him in this style for Queen Charlotte, wife of George III., which has likewise a foredge painting beneath the gold. His patterns were frequently Etruscan in character; but as his range of decoration was limited and the vellum he used insufficiently transparent, his books are only of moderate interest. Mr. Chivers’ plan is a much simpler one, and if the designs are given into the hands of artists, very original results can be obtained. The French have one binder—M. Carayon—who is famed for a class of book cover that gives something of the same effect. The best-known painters both in water colours and black and white are employed to decorate the white vellum that clothes so sumptuously the finely illustrated books that his countrymen admire so much. These will, however, stand no usage of any kind, and can only be kept in cases carefully made for their protection. The vellucent work of Mr. Chivers being beneath the vellum runs no risk of deterioration and can stand even more than the usual wear and tear. Sometimes it appears as if the colours chosen were too strong, producing in some cases rather the effect of the highly coloured supplements that appear at Christmas in our illustrated papers; but that, of course, is not a criticism that belongs to the method, but is rather a counsel of perfection for a more delicate application of that method. The desire for colour has appeared constantly in the history of bookbinding. We see it first in the Venetian books brilliantly painted in lacquer in the Persian and Saracenic style taken from Arabian manuscripts, then in the strapwork coloured with a varnished incrustation like enamel, the best of which, French and Italian, is found about the middle of the sixteenth century. This method has proved very perishable, and has never been revived. Later on we get the inlaying of coloured leathers, which reached its most interesting development in the eighteenth century, and has retained its hold on public taste ever since. The earlier painted strapwork was freely copied in mosaics of leather; and when we come to deal with present-day French bindings, we shall see the new style of inlaid decoration to which these have given place. The vellucent method of Mr. Chivers is full of delightful possibilities if confined to books to which it is suited, and when employed in a rather lower colour scheme as suggested. Nor is it necessary for the whole cover to be of vellum, for it is possible to introduce a panel only of the transparent material over a picture, and to incorporate this in the morocco, giving the effect of an enrichment of enamel.
Another style which Mr. Chivers has done much to popularise is calf, embossed and incised and sometimes coloured by hand. In this, as for the vellucent bindings, he draws freely upon outside talent. Mr. H. Granville-Fenn is general artistic adviser, and Miss Alice Shepherd and Mr. S. Poole have long been associated with him in the execution of this work.[[5]] Some of the ‘cuir ciselé’ that has come down to us from the past, and which originated in Germany, is very fine in character, as any one can see who studies some excellent examples exposed in the British Museum. There seems no reason why it should not have a satisfactory revival; in France, indeed, this has already taken place, as we shall see later on, but in England there is still too much ‘prettiness’ associated with it, and one is apt to think it more suitable for card-cases and blotting-cases than for bindings. What results it can yield when the design is severe and dignified and the treatment finely chiselled may be observed on the Pantheologia by Rainesius de Pisa, a folio dated about 1475, one of the Museum books just mentioned.
15. Bound by the Oxford University Press.
16. Bound by the Oxford University Press.
The last illustrations in this chapter show work from the binding department of the Oxford University Press. The Press itself, located in special buildings in Oxford built in 1830, is divided into two parts, one devoted chiefly to the printing of Bibles and Prayer-Books, the other to classical, scientific and general printing. It is entirely self-contained, making its own paper, ink, type, stereo- and electro-plates. The University type foundry is the oldest in England, and at the paper mills at Wolvercote, near Oxford, the famous India paper is made which has brought very great changes into the book trade. The publishing and binding house, lately at Amen Corner in the City, is now at St. Dunstan’s House, Fetter Lane, and thither are sent all the books from the Press as soon as printed. In the Paris Exhibition of 1900 the Press showed a considerable number of decorated bindings in addition to the exhibits from the other departments. The Oxford Press designs are very varied in character and include some excellent inlays; they are made by the more artistic among the workmen, and speak highly for the level of taste attained in the bindery.
17. Bound by the Guild of Handicraft.