BOOKS AND BOOKBINDING 



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BOOKS AND BOOKBINDING 



twenty minutes, the gold is burnished by hand. 

 The cost of gilding books is* very great com- 

 pared with that of other processes. Real gold 

 is used and the process is very slow. 



The man who marbles the edges of books 

 stands before a tank filled with liquid gum in 

 a thin solution. On the surface of this tank 

 he sprinkles colors with a round whisk broom. 

 These colors float on the surface and mingle 

 in the patterns you see on "marbled" paper 

 edges. He takes as many as a dozen books, 

 tightly clamped together, and dips their edges 

 into the tank, then puts them on a rack to dry. 

 He can dip them only once because this imme- 

 diately disturbs the colors, and he has then to 

 skim the tank and start over again. 



Plain-colored edges are put on with a sponge, 

 just as stain is put .on wood. Sometimes the 

 edges are stained reef, before gilding. All of the 

 surfaces, whether stained or marbled, are bur- 

 nished after they <5ry, with emery or agate 

 wheels. 



Rounding and Backing. As soon as the edges 

 are finished, the books are backed with hot 

 glue; this is well rubbed in, so the spaces 

 between the signatures will not tend to break 

 apart. When the glue is dry, the books are put 

 into another machine which rounds out the 

 back and makes the front curve in a little. 

 The same machine creases the book at the 

 back where the cover hinges on. This process 

 is called backing. 



Lining. The next operation is to paste the 

 cloth on the back edge of the book, which, in 

 addition to the sewing, holds the leaves to- 

 gether, and is fastened to the cover of the book. 

 This lining is usually of crinoline, but occa- 

 sionally, if it is desired to make the book ex- 

 ceptionally strong, canton flannel is used. This 

 flannel is very fuzzy and, once it is glued into 

 place, can hardly be loosened. Lining the 

 back is the last operation before the book is 

 put into the cover. 



The Cover. Covers are of leather, cloth or 

 paper, usually stiffened with pasteboard; if no 

 pasteboard is used the cover is limp. Cloth and 

 paper covers are cut by machinery, but leather 

 covers are cut by hand to avoid waste of ma- 

 terial. The edges of leather are beveled in a 

 machine to avoid bulkiness when the material 

 is folded over the pasteboard. The covers are 

 pasted on the boards by another machine. 

 An operator stands before it and feeds it the 

 pieces of cloth or leather, and the machine does 

 the rest of the work. The glue is heated by 

 machinery, the cloth is coated with it, the 

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heavy pasteboard sides are moved up, a roller 

 presses the two together and the finished covers 

 drop out. 



Another machine stamps the lettering on the 

 cover. If the lettering is to be in gold, the cov- 

 ers first go through the hands of girls who cover 

 the spaces with gold leaf. After the title has 

 been stamped other girls rub off the surplus 

 gold with balls of soft rubber. 



Perhaps the most interesting machine of all 

 is the one which pastes the cover and book 

 together. This machine has two great paste 

 boxes which move up to the book and coat the 

 end sheets with glue. The book then drops 

 to meet the cover, which is pressed firmly 

 against it. This process is accomplished so 

 accurately that the end sheets serve to line 

 the covers of the book. The books, now com- 

 plete, are put into great presses and a cover is 

 screwed down very tightly; then they are left 

 several hours to dry. 



Expensive books, particularly those bound in 

 leather, often have the covers put on by hand. 

 A book is said to be bound in full leather, if 

 the back and sides are fully covered with a 

 single piece of leather. A book is half bound, 

 or bound in half leather, if the back and a nar- 

 row strip on the sides are of leather, leaving 

 the rest of the sides to be covered with paper 

 or cloth. Small pieces of leather are usually 

 added on the corners to keep them from break- 

 ing and to add to the attractiveness of the 

 volume; this style of binding is called three- 

 quarter leather. In binding by hand the hemp 

 strings to which the sheets are sewed are run 

 through holes pierced in the heavy pasteboard 

 cover, the leather back and corners are pasted 

 on, and the paper or cloth cover and inside 

 lining are pasted down by hand. 



One of the marvels in modern invention is a 

 machine which is used in binding the cheapest 

 books. This one machine performs all of the 

 processes. It folds, gathers, wire stitches and 

 covers a book without the aid of human hands. 



The Art of Bookbinding. If we consider 

 binding as a method of preserving documents, 

 the Assyrian tablets in the British Museum, 

 dating from the sixteenth century B. c., were 

 bound, for they were placed in a sort of en- 

 velope made of terra cotta. The earliest Orien- 

 tal books, which were written on separate 

 leaves, were placed between two flat pieces of 

 wood or copper or richly-carved ivory and 

 bound tightly together with a leather thong. 

 The Greeks and Romans wrapped a leather 

 cover around their waxed tablets of wood. ' 



