Among the very large number of eighteenth-century bindings that survive, the great difficulty is to identify with any certainty the binder of a particular volume. In many instances—perhaps most—it is impossible to be absolutely sure on this point. Except in France, binders of the eighteenth century, or any period, who signed or labeled their work were relatively rare.
One English craftsman who did identify his products was Roger Payne of London. An eccentric and a heavy drinker, Payne was nevertheless a careful worker and a creative artist in the bindery. His books are beautifully adorned with patterns built up with small tools that he designed and cut himself. In many of the books he bound, Payne included a detailed account of his work. The following statement, copied in part from a Bible now owned by Princeton University, is a good example:
Letter’d in ye most exact manner, exceeding rich small Tool Gilt Back of a new pattern studded in Compartments. The outside finished in the Richest & most elegant Taste Richer, & more exact than any Book that I ever Bound. The insides finished in a new design exceeding elegant. Bound in the very best manner sew’d with silk on strong and neat Bands. The Back lined with Russia Leather under the Blue morrocco. Cover very strong & neat Boards....
TELLTALE TOOLS
Although some colonial binders labeled their products, none of the several Williamsburg bookbinders of colonial days followed Roger Payne’s admirable precedent. Examples of the work of some of them, however, have been identified beyond doubt through direct or circumstantial evidence—the latter often derived by processes resembling police detection.
Clues to the identity of a binder may be found in various facets of printing and binding: shop records of orders filled, materials used, and wages paid; place and date of publication as given on title pages; watermarks in the paper; and recurrent decorative patterns. Even contemporary newspaper advertisements may throw light on the matter.
The watermark of paper made in William Park’s paper mill near Williamsburg. It represents the coat of arms of the Virginia colony. This tracing is taken from Rutherford Goodwin, The William Parks Paper Mill at Williamsburg (Lexington, Va., 1939), in which he tells how the watermark was once described by a New Englander as resembling two men in long underwear with a basket of fish between them. The parallel vertical lines are the “chain lines” characteristic of handmade “laid” paper.
Evidence of every kind has been used in tracing out the story of the bookbinding craft in Williamsburg. The surest clues, especially in tracking down and identifying individual bindings, have been the distinctive footprints left by the binders’ decorating tools. Archaeological excavations on the site of the Printing Office have yielded examples of these tools, some for stamping letters and others for impressing the gilded decoration that made the eighteenth-century bookbinder’s products as attractive as they were useful.
Under the eye of microscope and enlarging camera even mass-produced typewriters reveal slight irregularities that are unique to each machine. The brass stamps and rolls used by eighteenth-century binders for working decorations into leather were all made by hand. Because of some imperfection in workmanship or simply because ornamental dies were not supposed to duplicate each other, each tool had its own peculiarities. Very often the distinguishing characteristics of the impressions they made are visible to the naked eye.