#book bindings

[garlandedspirits]

Book bindings for various editions of Charles Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du mal”

[u-mspcoll]

Magnificent: Seven Bindings from Our Collection of Greek Manuscripts

Join us for a talk by Julia Miller about her experience describing and documenting the bindings on 100 Greek manuscripts held in the U-M Library's Special Collections Research Center. Julia will show us what “magnificent” can mean with regard to the binding and repair of some of our oldest books; her presentation will be accompanied by a display of seven exemplars from our collection of Greek manuscripts. The event takes place on Tuesday 9 June at 5:30 pm in the Special Collections Research Center on the sixth floor of the Hatcher Library. Refreshments will be provided.

Read more!

[hdslibrary]

Fore Edge Forest?

We have winter break on our minds, so the edge decoration on this late 17th century collection of knowledge from sacred and ecclesiastical histories looks like pine trees to us!

Link to catalog record:

Goeree, Willem. Voor-bereidselen tot de bybelsche wysheid, en gebruik der heilige en kirklijke historien: uit de alder-oudste gedenkkenissen der Hebreen, Chaldeen, Babyloniers, Egiptenaars, Syriers, Grieken en Romeinen...Amsterdam, W. Goeree, 1690.

[curiouscatalog]

Some pretty bindings today.

From: Poe, Edgar Allan, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and George Edward Woodberry. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe : Newly Collected and Edited, with a Memoir, Critical Introductions, and Notes. Chicago: Stone & Kimball, 1894

PS2601 .S72 1894

[lesboevils]

      18th century book bindings from italy via The Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art ( sources: 1 2 3 )

[uwmspeccoll]

Fore Edge Friday

This week we present two volumes of the fifth edition of English writer and moralist Hannah More’s, Hints Towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess, printed in London for Thomas Cadell and William Davies in 1819. Each volume bears a fore-edge painting, or painting under gold. When fanned, the fore edge of volume one reveals a painting of Windsor Castle, while volume two bears a bucolic painting of Frogmore Cottage on the grounds of the royal Windsor estates, the former home of the current Duke and Duchess of Sussex before stepping down from royal duties and moving to North America.

The volumes are full-bound in green, blind-tooled, straight-grain Morocco, and are housed in a blue Morocco book-form, pull-off case (which has seen better days) made by the notable London bookbinders Sangorski & Sutcliffe for the J. W. Robinson Company, a southern California department store company which maintained a book department.

More often than not, the subjects of fore-edge paintings, which were usually commissioned by the book owner, had little to do with the book’s content. In this case, however, we think the choice of royal residences seems appropriate for a book containing advice for a young princess.

View our Fore Edge Friday post from last week.

[noelcollection]

This fine binding exhibits half-bound morocco boards with marbled paper. The spine is partially gilt.

Images from: Esther Copley's Female excellence, or, Hints to daughters. London : The Religious Tract Society. Call Number: BJ1681 .C67 Catalog Record: https://bit.ly/3qh12c2