BOOKBINDING: ITS PEOCUSSUS AND IDEAL. 671 

 BOOKBINDING: ITS PROCESSES AND IDEAL.* 



Br T. J. COBDEN-SANDERSON. 



BOOKBINDING is in itself a comparatively simple matter and 

 is easily described : but it is associated with great and inter- 

 esting conditions of society, and at its liighest rises into disinter- 

 ested admiration by such means of expression as are "witbin its 

 reach of what is most beautiful and wonderful in human achieve- 

 ment, the written and printed speech of man. Binding, moreover, 

 like every other handicraft, is on its ideal side a discipline and a 

 type of life. I propose, therefore, to explain indeed how a book is 

 bound, and how, when bound, it may be tooled. But I propose 

 also throughout to set the craft into imaginative sympathy with 

 the thought it would perpetuate; to touch upon its origin, its 

 history, and its patrons ; to characterize the styles of the great 

 periods of tooled decoration ; to insist upon the need of some new 

 departure in the invention and development of pattern; and 

 finally, leaving the special objects of the binder's craft, to find in 

 the intuition of the harmony of the universe an outline of the 

 ideal of the craftsman and of the artist. 



Speaking generally, binding has its origin in the desire to per- 

 petuate thought. Before the discovery or invention of pliable 

 portable material suitable for writing upon, "binding" was 

 sought for and found in imperishable natural objects, stones, 

 tablets, columns, ready to hand, upon which the thought was per- 

 manently incised. In this case the binding may be said to have 

 preceded the writing. It was only when writing was made upon 

 separate pieces or sheets of a pliable and perishable material that 

 binding proper was invented to hold the pieces or sheets together 

 and to give strength to them, and protection and beauty. 



But here again a distinction must be made. The pliable 

 written sheet may be either rolled or folded, each giving rise to a 

 form of binding peculiar to itself. The rolled sheet is bound by 

 fastening each sheet to the other sideways, and rolling the whole 

 laterally from end to end, the last sheet serving as a cover to all 

 the rest. The folded sheet, on the other hand, is bound by simply 

 sewing or otherwise fastening the parts of the sheet to one another 

 at the back crease or fold. And a number of folded sheets or of 

 sections, as they are called, are bound by fastening each of them 

 at the back to some common support, so that when all are sewn 

 or otherwise fastened at the back, they may yet be free to open 

 and shut at the front, or fore-edge. 



The invention of the folded sheet thus gave rise to the mven- 



* Address delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, February 2, 1894. 



