Persnickety Bindery @fluffyrockyroad - Tumblr Blog

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littlestpersimmon

Free Ornamentation IV. This work is dedicated to the public domain 🐌

deckhanddandy

Master and Commander: they’re published in chronological order, here’s a list for you! Have fun and be yourself!

Hornblower:

fluffyrockyroad

When I did my Hornblower bookbind I included a bibliography, in published and chronological orders. For this very reason.

#hornblower #bookbinding #So when Forester appeared to have completely forgotten about something we know why

[Bookbind] A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Typeset by the amazing @canon-in-too-deep

A very unseasonable bind. Finished just in time for a heatwave. A few quick pictures before gifting this one to a dear friend of mine.

This is mostly an excuse to use this gorgeous Victorian pineapple paper. I love the Victorian obsession with pineapple.

It fell victim to a substandard bottle of glue, which simultaneously decided to seep everywhere and not glue. To hide the glue mark, I made a little dust jacket out of some Christmas wrapping paper that has been in the cupboard for years.

#bookbinding #a christmas carol #Mostly an excuse to tag the amazing #Canon-in-too-deep #You are a saint to us bookbinders!#charles dickens

siredwardsmoak

Original Hornblower Covers

These wonderful original pieces of art were commissioned by C.S. Forester for all 11 Hornblower titles. I could not find all 11 original pieces of art, unfortunately.

Doug works mainly with pencil and an old and dated technique called “scratch board” which gives his art a very unique and distinctive appearance and appeal.

“Lieutenant Hornblower” art by Douglas Smith

“Hornblower and the Hotspur” art by Douglas Smith

“Ship of the Line” art by Douglas Smith

“Flying Colours” art by Douglas Smith

“Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies” art by Douglas Smith

“Commodore Hornblower” art by Douglas Smith

heliotropepajamas-books

Fanbinding: Midshipman's Malady by Swiftsure

Bind #14

Midshipman’s Malady by Swiftsure (@swiftly-surely)

Date Completed: 02/07/2025

Size: Quarto. 19,837 words, 151 pages.

Copies: 1

5th book of Binderary

This is a Horatio Hornblower story with a really interesting magic system and some unconventional world building. Since it was an Age of Sail setting it was the perfect excuse to use some fun materials. I used mystery paper from the local creative reuse store for the textblock and untrimmed edges for a rustic look. The cover is a bit of printed marble paper I’ve been hoarding for "something good" for 10+ years. I’m not sure why I thought the gold HTV would have enough contrast with the brown bookcloth for the spine title, but it is readable from certain angles.

Garamond for the body since it’s a historic font, and IM Fell for the titles since it looks aged, plus a cursive font I can't recall. The margins are a bit wide since I originally planned to trim the edges, but they give it rather luxurious proportions (plenty of room for marginalia and rebinding if it was a period book). I couldn’t decide between two mock-ups for the title page, so included both - a super simple one for the regular title and over-the-top following the introduction.

#fanbinding #hornblower #bookbinding #The post that got me into bookbinding

[Bookbind] Hornblower Short Tales of the Sea

Hornblower Short Tales of the Sea

A series of short stories by C.S. Forester:

The Hand of Destiny

Hornblower and the Widow McCool

Hornblower's Charitable Offering

Hornblower and His Majesty

The Last Encounter

Size: A6. 24,543 words. 127 pages. Printed on Munken 90gsm bookwove

Font: Dante 10 + Times New Roman 9.5 for Italics. Typeset by me.

I wanted to read the three Hornblower short stories that are no longer in print. So I made a book. As you would. The stories were arranged in chronological order. Widow McCool and The Last Encounter were threw in to bulk out the book.

The title came from the blurb on the back of the Hornblower books, which always starts with "A Horatio Hornblower Tale of the Sea". I guess it makes these his "Short Tales of the Sea".

Forester allegedly discouraged the republishing of these three short stories. Having read them I understand why. To quote Sean Gilder (who played Styles in the TV series):

"Hornblower, by comparison, is just a series of well-described events"

Sean was comparing Hornblower to Joseph Conrad, which I have not read. But as a Hornblower fan who loves Hornblower for how diabolical he (and the writing) is, it did make me chuckle. The earlier short stories are the pinnacle of "a series of well-described events", that are out of place in the later canon. Though it is interested to see the parallel between The Hand of Destiny and Lieutenant Hornblower.

This is the second time I bound this text. The first attempt was an A5 copy set in Dante 13, which I wasn’t too happy with.

Big book, little book. The big book has too much hinge gap, the little book has just too little. One day I will get it right.

If anyone is looking for a fic rec, The Bare Word (Hornblower/Barry McCool, Explicit) is the perfect companion piece for Hornblower and the Widow McCool, also known as Hornblower's Temptation (this is canon I did not make this up).

#hornblower #fanbinding #bookbinding #I am bad at writing book review

[Fanbind] The Alchemy of Resurrection

The Alchemy of Resurrection by Julie

Fandom: Hornblower

Relationship: Hornblower/Pellew

Size: A6. 12,318 words. 67 pages.

Font: Dante 11 to match the Hornblower books

I fell into the Hornblower fandom when, last winter, having finally got around to watching Sharpe, I wanted another period drama fix. My partner at the time suggested Hornblower. The montage on the Justinia drew me in. I love living history. I love a TV show with a good historic feel. I wasn't happy with certain parts of the plot. So I picked up the books, wanting to see if it was a source material issue or a TV adaptation issue (Spoiler: it was an adaptation issue. Can't they just follow the books?).

I know I have a tendency to ship age gap/mentor relationships. When I saw Pellew and Hornblower, I had to conscientiously tell myself NOT to ship them. It was a pure adaptive father and son relationship (my partner genuinely thought Hornblower was Pellew's illegitimate son). And then I went on AO3, as you would, and fell straight down the Pellew/Hornblower rabbit hole.

The fic was set in Malta, 1797. Hornblower and Pellew went on a diplomatic mission with Tapling. They used their time ashore to talk about things. I love this fic for its depiction of Malta, and for having a balanced power dynamic which is rare for this kind of ship.

For the endpapers I printed historic maps of Malta on lokta paper. It gave a surprisingly nice historic feel, but it was also a pain to glue these onto the book. All maps are from the David Rumsey Map Collection.

The fic, and the source material

It is such a good feeling to hold a fic I love, and be able to read it again and again.

Thank you Julie for giving me the permission to bind this fic :)

#hornblower #fanbinding #I am bad at writing book review #The posting is harder than the bookbinding #bookbinding

teleportbooks

Bookbinding: The Imperial Uncle by Da Feng Gua Guo

This is the first of two novels I bound for @spockandawe for a cnovel bookbinding exchange. The Imperial Uncle is pretty short (the Peach Flower House edition is a single volume) and I bound it in two quarto volumes with a brocade bookcloth cover and a bamboo strip spine. The pages are sewn directly to the string tying the spine together. The slipcase is covered with the same brocade bookcloth and decorated with satin cord.

The text is set in Goudy Bookletter 1911, with decorative initials and other decorative elements also by Goudy.

sully-s

When they navy boys come home.

sully-s

I always love the first few days of Horatio being back on the sea because Bush is always so ecstatic and chipper, while Horatio is always beyond miserable and contradiction that Horatio is a fantastic seaman but suffers from sea sickness, is so wonderful.