The Private Library / What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know About Our Books

by Arthur Lee Humphreys

Decoration of books should only be carried out when we are sure we have an appropriate design, and when we are sure that the book is worth it.

There are now some other details to be looked after. I refuse to class them as minor details, because towards the making of the perfect book everything right is essential.

(1) The Shakespeare, being a book printed on paper of good quality, should have the top edge gilt, but the other sides should be left untouched or very slightly trimmed. (2) There should be one or two markers in each volume, and the colour of these markers should harmonise with the colour of the binding. (3) The lettering should be chosen yourself. There should be a principal title stamped boldly and deeply, and subordinate lettering stamped lower down and in smaller type. Thus SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS or SHAKESPEARE merely in the top panel, with the editor's name underneath, and then below should be lettered the plays contained in each volume, and below that, at the foot, the date of publication. (4) Three weeks to a month at least should be allowed for the binding of such a work. (5) A folded copy in quires of a book is always preferable to a cloth-bound copy. (6) If a binder should ever suggest either a padded binding, a russia leather binding, or a tree calf binding, you may instantly leave his premises, for he cannot understand his business.

It will be understood that the rules which apply to the binding of this Shakespeare equally apply to most other books. I propose, however, to take such instances as I think present difficulties not already met, and see how they can be overcome.

A second instance shall be the new edition of Pepys' Diary. The fact that this, and many other books, are published volume by volume makes it somewhat difficult to know whether to bind them at once or not to do so. In the case of the new edition of Pepys' Diary, as neither the binding of the large or small paper is unsightly, it should be left until complete, one good reason for this being that, if it be bound volume by volume as published, the binder will require a pattern volume each time, and your pattern volume will be lying about his workshop each time a volume is published. To register a pattern is by no means advisable in the case of a really well-bound series of books. It may do well enough for scientific and other journals, when great nicety of detail is not so much required. In the case of well-bound volumes, a pattern should accompany the order. A book like Murray's Dictionary, volumes of which are slow in completing themselves, the parts of the volumes, current and incomplete, should either be tied up in paper, and kept together, or they should be placed between two pieces of millboard on the shelf where they will finally be placed.

A third instance shall be an old book which requires repairing or restoring. We will suppose that it is an old copy of Clarissa Harlowe, which you have picked up on a country book-stall. Now the binding is probably very much broken, and, being very dry, is getting rapidly worse. It is time, therefore, that it went into hospital, and at the bookbinder's hospital very clever operations are performed. To restore a binding, paste is rubbed over the leather, and, after it is dry, it is washed over with a thin solution of glue size. Again, when dry, the volume is varnished and afterwards rubbed over with a cloth upon which a few drops of sweet oil have been dropped. Here is one operation just in outline. There are very many others, which I can only refer to. If there are ink marks on any of the volumes of your Clarissa, which you wish removed, this can probably be done so that no trace is left. Similarly many grease-spots can be effectually removed. If a page is torn, it can be repaired, or if a piece of it is missing, it can be facsimiled, and the whole of the inside of the volume can be washed throughout. Never destroy an old binding if you can help it, and never obliterate marks of ownership, for it is interesting to trace the owners of a book. If a bookplate is in your Clarissa, and you wish your own to appear, transplant the former one to the end cover, and put your own in the front if you wish. Never have such a book as we are now discussing cut down. A book has recently been written and published by Mr. C. G. Leland on Mending and Repairing, in which the author recommends the amateur to repair his own books. I believe Mr. Leland is an expert hand at many arts and crafts, but I do not think that every amateur should attempt experiments in repairing his own books unless he means to give a great deal of time to it, which very few would, I think, care to do.

The following remarks, taken from a review, I think by Mr. A. Lang, are valuable:—'The binder is often very mischievous. He not only "cuts down" books, impairing their shapeliness and ruining them for sale, nay, even cutting off lines, but he is apt to lose fly-leaves, with imprints, and rare autographs. What he rejects may have a merely fanciful or sentimental interest, still that interest can be expressed in terms of currency. An eighth of an inch in margin may represent a large sum of money, and it is just as easy not to cut down the volume. Old bookplates ought to be kept, on new bindings of old books. They are the pedigree of a volume. The ancient covers, if discarded, should be examined. They are often packed with fragments of old manuscripts, deeds, woodcuts, or engravings. The ages have handed books on to us; it is our duty to hand them on to coming generations, clean, sound, uninjured.'

The fourth case shall be paper-bound novels, English and French editions, and Tauchnitz copies. I have no hesitation in saying that the best material is Buckram. It has the merit of being good—that is to say, durable, cheap, artistic, and not harsh to handle, as many linens are. There are some half-a-dozen good colours in Buckram, and these, when relieved by lettering-pieces of some contrasting colour, can be made most decorative and economical. I believe buckram is in every way a most excellent material for binding, and for students who buy and use German and French text-books published in paper, this material is excellent for their libraries as well.

Here may be added a few words as to Pamphlets and Magazines. It has been recommended that Pamphlets be kept in boxes, which may be placed upon the shelves as books, but this will not be found either convenient or secure. The best way is to bind Pamphlets in volumes according to size, or if very numerous, according to date or subject, and let them each be entered separately in the catalogue. In the cataloguing of private libraries it is sometimes thought that certain sections, such as pamphlets and magazines, are not worth entering, but the only safe rule is that, if it is worth keeping, it is worth cataloguing. Single pamphlets should be bound in limp roan, and volumes of pamphlets in buckram or half-calf, with full lettering on the back.

Magazines, when they are kept complete, should, of course, be bound up in their volumes, either yearly or half-yearly; but it often happens that a magazine is bought for a single article, and many of these accumulating, it is quite easy for such articles as are of special interest to be taken from the remainder, and treated as pamphlets. In the case of magazines and scientific periodicals of importance, it is well to keep the covers and bind them at the end of each volume. Music should be bound in limp roan in preference to limp calf, because the latter would sooner show scratches and marks, particularly as a large surface is exposed.