- About Bookbinding -

The Technique of the Craft

As there is unfortunately no word in the English language to describe those familiar, yet dignified, poems which in France are known as vers de societe, and which are far above ordinary "society verse," and as there is no single term to denote the short-story, the form of fiction in which we Americans have been most abundant and successful, so also is there need in English of a recognized phrase for the defining each of the two halves of bibliopegic art. Bookbinding consists of two wholly distinct operations, known to the expert as "forwarding" and "finishing." Forwarding is the proper preparation of a book for its cover and the putting on of that cover; finishing is the decoration of the sides and back of the book after it has been covered. Forwarding, therefore, is the task of an artisan, while finishing must be the work of an artist.

Mr. William Matthews, than whom there is no one more competent to express an opinion, has declared that "a book, when neatly and cleanly covered, is in a very satisfactory condition without any finishing or decorating." Many book-lovers agree with the foremost of American bookbinders, and order their precious volumes to be soberly clad in plain morocco. The Jansenist binding, as it is called after the leader of the recluses of Port-Royal, calls for the maximum of care in the forwarding, and the minimum of gilding or other decoration of the finisher.

Mr. Matthews went even further, - I quote from his lecture on "Bookbinding Practically Considered," delivered before the Grolier Club of New York in 1885, and by the club printed in 1889, and having described the successive steps by which a book is prepared, forwarded, and covered with leather, said: "I now declare the book in this condition is bound, and he who has skilfully mastered these various processes through which a volume has passed deserves the name of binder; he who is called upon to decorate it, finisher. At present the custom is the reverse: the finisher or decorator is credited with being the binder, whereas he has done none of the binding."

Now, there is no doubt that the protest of this accomplished craftsman is well founded. But the error is so old that there is no hope of uprooting it at this late day. When we speak of a book as beautifully bound, we are praising the work of the man who designed and executed the decoration of the cover, not the labour of the man who clothed the book with leather, and who obviously enough was really its binder. Of course, in a great many instances forwarder and finisher is one and the same person. Perhaps this was the case with the books which are catalogued as "bound by Le Gascon," although it is as a finisher that "Le Gascon" is unrivalled, and certainly it is the case with the books bound by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, who himself attends to every detail of preparing and forwarding, aided only by his wife. The French term for "finisher" is "gilder," and, in his account of French bookbinding, M. Marius Michel, a doreur himself, is very careful to give credit for a delicate decoration to the special artist who designed and gilded it. It is greatly to be regretted that there is in popular use only one word to designate the two distinct operations.