A Manual of Mending and Repairing; With Diagrams

by Charles Godfrey Leland

If the reader will now take a simply sewn or stitched book, without binding, and will place across its back two or more strips of parchment, and glue them on with the strongest possible cement—mastic being the best, but acidulated glue or flour-paste with glue, or even dextrine-paste, will answer the purpose—and if he will again paste up and down over these a strip just the width of the back, he will have all that is necessary to make a strong binding, for this will hold as well as the strings. Note that the parchment strips must first be thoroughly wet through and macerated, or crumpled till quite soft. Again, that when the paste is nearly dry the strip should be rubbed in.

Next cut out two pieces of strong pasteboard, each a very little larger than the length and width of the book. These are the covers.

Now paste the outside of the straps exactly to the inside of the covers, leaving just enough space for opening and closing. When dry, the book should open and close easily. Then take the outer cover of leather or cloth, which is cut in the shape indicated in the accompanying outline, paste it well over the back, and then turn the edges over and paste them down over the cover inside, so as to form a narrow margin, as may be seen by examining any book. Also turn down, before doing this, the edges at the ends of the book. The binding will be much stronger if, after pasting the ends of the parchment strips to the covers, we paste over them in turn good, strong pieces of paper, close to the back, to prevent the strips from pulling up.

If there be fly or blank leaves on the sides of the book, paste one of each down over the inside of the cover. This will conceal the margin and add greatly to the strength of the book. But if there be none, you can supply them, firstly, by a method which will make your binding even stronger than that of most books. Take a very strong piece, let us say, of Whatman’s or any other good tough linen drawing-paper, just of the size to cover the whole book—that is, back and sides. Cut in it four slits, and pass the strips which are to bind the book to the cover through, and gum them down, and then paste the fly-leaf thus added down over the strips. But it will answer every purpose if you simply gum fly-leaves on by a very narrow margin of “adhesive.” All of this will become clear to any one who will carefully examine a book. And anybody who has the dexterity to fold a letter neatly or do up a parcel properly, can in a short time, after one or two experiments, succeed in binding a book in this manner. I have observed that those who fail as amateur bookbinders generally do so because they attempt too much too soon, and aim at producing elegant masterpieces before they have learned to manage with ease such common work as I have described.

Though this manner of strip-binding is little known, it was, strange to say, the very first ever practised; for, according to Olympiodorus, one Philatius was the first who taught the use of glue to fasten written or blank leaves together, for which great discovery a statue was erected to him. Binders were called among the Romans ligatores, as they are still in Italy, legatori; and it was here, indeed, that I myself learned the craft, as I now generally bind my own books. Those who prepared and sold the covers for Roman booksellers were called scrutarii.

There is a very easy way to bind up pamphlets, MSS., or letters when they have any margin for a back. If you cannot have them stitched—which, though difficult to an inexpert, can be done for a mere trifle—then sew them together across from side to side. Where the pages are of great value, gum them together by a very narrow doubled or folded strip of adhesive. This done, bind as before, or else simply paste on a cover of drawing-paper at the back, and the fly-leaves to the sides. A great deal of loose literature, flying leaves, clippings from newspapers, letters, &c., can in this way, at no great expenditure of time or money, be converted into really valuable books.

I may here observe that cloth for binding, thin leather, and even common parchment or parchment-paper, are much cheaper than would be supposed, and that the average cost, all expenses included, of binding a duodecimo book in these would only be from threepence to a shilling. Any waste parchment will serve for binding.

Any person, however, who can emboss leather with tracer and stamp, even though but a little, after a week’s practice, can decorate and ornament books so as to greatly enhance their value. Nor do I exaggerate when I say that here is a field in which any person who can draw or copy decorative patterns moderately well might make a living. The reader will find the fullest details as to how this is done in my Manual of Leather Work. (Price 5s. London, Whittaker & Co., 2 White Hart Street, E.C.) In the present work I can only state that it is executed as follows:—Bind your book with cardboard in fairly thick, hard, and firm brown leather; there is a kind made for the purpose in Germany. Draw the pattern on it, or else draw it on paper with a crayon-pencil, and rub it from the back on the leather. This done, go over it with the fine point of a miniature brush in Indian ink. Dampen the leather slightly as you work with a sponge, and mark the outline with a tracer and stamp the ground with a matt. You may leave it brown, but if the work be coarse, I advise painting the whole with ink or Indian ink, and then coating it with Soehnée’s varnish, No. 3. Rub this down well by hand.