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



printer, and the binder, are not in possession of ideas bearing and 

 operative upon the book as a whole, and controlling their several 

 crafts to the one common end of the book beautiful, and the 

 binder is in the unfortunate position of coming last, to inherit all, 

 and be helpless under, the mistakes of his predecessors the paper 

 maker, printer and publisher. 



Modern binding may be divided into two main divisions : 



1. Bindings for use. 



2. Bindings for beauty's sake. 



I do not say that the divisions can be precisely defined or that the 

 useful may not be beautiful, or that the beautiful may not be useful. 

 I mean only that of a certain class the utility of the binding is the 

 main characteristic, and that of a certain other class not the utility of 

 the binding but the beauty of the decoration is the prominent and 

 delightful feature. All bindings may be, and most bindings are, 

 decorated in some form or other, but I would deprecate the decora- 

 tion in gold of cloth or paper bindings : the material is too poor 

 and the kind of binding is unsuitable for elaborate invention. Decora- 

 tion should be reserved for cases in which a permanent pleasure is 

 aimed at, and decoration in all its affluence exclusively for bindings of 

 the best kind, and for books that are in themselves, apart from their 

 apparel, beautiful and worthy of conspicuous honour. 



The binding of a book, to come closer to our subject, is a series 

 of processes too numerous to be entered upon in detail, in so short 

 an account of bookbinding as the present, but the main operations are 

 as follows : 



1. The sheets are folded so that the headlines of each page shall, 

 if possible, be at a uniform height throughout the book. 



2. The sections are then sewn to cords, set and held at equal 

 distances from one another in a frame, and at right angles to the 

 sections. 



3. The ends of the cords are frayed out and laced into and 

 fastened to rectangular pieces of millboard (called boards), cut to 

 the size of the sides of the book, which they protect. 



4. The boards and back are then covered with leather or other 

 suitable material, and the last and first sheets of the book (added to 

 the book proper for the purpose) are pasted down upon the inside of 

 the boards. 



The book so treated is completely " forwarded," as it is called, 

 and ready to pass into the hands of the " finisher " to be tooled or 

 decorated, or " finished." The decoration in gold on the surface of a 

 bound book is wrought out bit by bit by means of small engraved 

 brass stamps called " tools." The steps of the process are shortly as 

 follows : 



1. The pattern is first worked out with the tools blackened in 

 the smoke of a candle or lamp, upon a piece of paper cut to the 

 exact size of the portion of the book to be decorated. 



2. The piece of paper with the pattern upon it is then applied 



