'In a room ten and a half to eleven feet high, five feet is a desirable height for the bookcases. Besides the drawers at the base, this will afford space for four rows of books, to include octavos, duodecimos, and smaller volumes. The shelves should, of course, be shifting. . . . . By leaving the top of the bookcase twelve to thirteen inches wide, ample space will be allowed for additional small books, porcelain, and bric-à-brac. It must be borne in mind that tall bookcases, in addition to the inaccessibility of the volumes in the upper shelves, have little, if any, space for pictures on the walls above them.'
It may be appropriate here to remind readers of an essay in Addison's Spectator upon my Lady's Library.
'Some months ago, my Friend, Sir Roger, being in the Country, enclosed a Letter to me, directed to a certain Lady, whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained Matters of Consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own Hand. Accordingly, I waited upon her Ladyship early in the Morning, and was desired by her Woman to walk into her Lady's Library till such time as she was in Readiness to receive me. The very Sound of a Lady's Library gave me a great Curiosity to see it; and as it was some time before the Lady came to me, I had an Opportunity of turning over a great many of her Books, which were ranged together in very beautiful Order. At the end of the Folios (which were finely bound and gilt) were great Jars of China, placed one above another in a very noble piece of Architecture. The Quartos were separated from the Octavos by a Pile of smaller Vessels, which rose in a delightful Pyramid. The Octavos were bounded by Tea Dishes of all Shapes, Colours, and Sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden Frame that they looked like one continued Pillar indented with the finest Strokes of Sculpture, and stained with the greatest Variety of Dyes. That Part of the Library which was designed for the Reception of Plays and Pamphlets and other loose Papers, was enclosed in a kind of Square, consisting of one of the prettiest Grotesque Works that ever I saw, and made up of Scaramouches, Lions, Monkies, Mandarines, Trees, Shells, and a thousand other odd Figures in China Ware. In the midst of the Room was a little Japan Table, with a Quire of gilt Paper upon it, and on the Paper a Silver Snuff-box, made in the Shape of a little Book. I found there were several other Counterfeit Books upon the upper Shelves, which were carved in Wood, and served only to fill up the Number, like Fagots in the muster of a Regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixt kind of Furniture, as seemed very suitable both to the Lady and the Scholar, and did not know at first whether I should fancy myself in a Grotto, or in a Library.'
Bookbinding.
As far as I am aware there are only four bookbinders in London who may be trusted not to mutilate a book, and there are only two who have any sense of design and harmony of colour. In sending a book to be bound, if you value the book, you cannot be too careful or minute in giving instructions as to your wishes.
I think the best way to assist by advice is to picture a number of everyday instances of people requiring books to be bound, and to take such familiar cases instancing well-known books and show how each case can best be dealt with.
First of all, the right leather to use for binding is morocco. This is best; more durable, and a better choice of colour is given you. Half-morocco is good, but see that you get a good wide strip of morocco, and that it is not all cloth sides with a very narrow spine of leather. Valuable books should never be cut down. In many cases the top edges may be gilded which is a preservative from dust, but there are many other cases where instructions should be given to 'gild on the rough,' the three other sides should be left alone.
I will first take the case of the 'Cambridge' Shakespeare, the hand-made paper edition, already spoken of, where each play has been issued in a separate volume, and in all forty thin volumes. Now the first question to settle is: Shall I have each of the forty volumes bound separately, or shall I bind the forty in twenty double volumes? or another question may arise in your mind, Shall I keep the book in its neat linen cover as published, and get another small paper copy, and bind that instead? Such questions must be settled—each one for himself. All I will say now is that the large paper forty volume edition when bound in twenty double volumes makes a very ideal copy of a great English classic; so, presuming that it is to be bound, you must choose the style of binding. It should rest between half-morocco and whole morocco, the latter costing about double the former. I think half-morocco is right for the book in most cases, whole morocco being unnecessarily expensive. Then comes colour, which must largely be referred to your own taste—olive-green, brown, dark red, and light apple green, would all be appropriate colours to choose from. The binder should have a book of colours and shades ready for you to select one from. Be sure and see that you have a coarse-grained levant morocco, which is much handsomer than the less good hard fine-grained morocco; of course it should be a polished or crushed levant binding, though when you see the pattern piece of leather it will be rough and unpolished. At any rate select a colour which, when polished, will work 'clean.' Do not select anything very light in morocco, it will probably not work 'clean,' but come out spotted even when new.
You will now select 'end papers.' These, I am sorry to say, are mostly very ugly, though there have recently been made some beautiful cloudy coloured papers, which now and then, and apparently by accident, are very beautiful, and they are also rather expensive. Some of the Japanese papers have pretty and very unobtrusive marblings worked upon them, and occasionally, too, a brocade paper looks well; but for a classic, the plainer the better, and very often a monotint end paper, or even a plain white, looks exceedingly well. In the matter of end and side papers, it is as well to know that these can very easily be altered even after the book is finished. The revival of flat backs has been the cause of some disputing. I think myself that the pleasure with which the trained eye regards the flat back is sufficient excuse for it. As far as technique goes, the flat back is, I believe, just as lasting and as flexible as the round. Much must however be determined by the size and shape of the book as to whether a flat back is adopted or not. The Shakespeare which is now under consideration, when bound in double volumes, would, I think, look well with a flat back, and with flat raised bands between the panels; whereas, when bound in forty single volumes, it would be better to have a round back.
As to decoration and finish, the most lamentable errors of taste are often committed. Over-adornment is a curse. A person sees an attractive pattern lying in a shop, and wants all his or her books bound like it, without for a moment considering the anachronisms and impossible combinations that will thereby be perpetrated. It is the same with clothes. A man sees another man with a fine coat, and he straightway thinks he, too, will have a coat of that same make and pattern. Never does it occur to him to gauge the stature or character of the man who was first wearing the coat. There is yet a good deal of the monkey and the ape left in us. We seem to do our best to stifle our individuality, and reduce our souls to one sad dead level of accursed and wicked imitation. Some day we shall have our eyes opened, and then see that a man may break the whole of the Ten Commandments at once, and yet he shall be saved if he be not vulgar, and it is both senseless and vulgar to copy old bindings on to modern books. The only decoration which the copy of Shakespeare could require is a gilt line, or double gilt lines, round the panels of the back. The full gilt back is fortunately becoming extinct. It may well die.
