178 Mr. T. J. Cobden-Sanderson [Feb. 2, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday February 2, 1894. 



Sir Frederick Bramwell, Bart. D.C.L. LL.D. F.R.S. Honorary 

 Secretary and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, Esq. 



Bookbinding : its Processes and Ideal. 



Bookbinding is in itself a comparatively simple matter and is easily 

 described ; but it is associated with great and interesting conditions 

 of society, and at its highest rises into disinterested admiration by 

 such means of expression as are within its reach of what is most 

 beautiful and wonderful in human achievement, 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 tho craft into imagina- 

 tive sympathy with the thought it would perpetuate ; to touch upon 

 its origin, its history and its patrons, to characterise the styles of tho 

 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 port- 

 able 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 permanently 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 



