PRINTING AND MAKING OF BOOKS 



BOOKBINDING 



No better example of how necessity has stimulated 

 invention is known than that of the development of 

 bookbinding. When the only method of making books 

 was the tedious process of writing them, the bookbind- 

 ing methods were correspondingly deliberate. When 

 printing was introduced, bookbinders discovered new 

 materials and methods, and were soon able to keep 

 pace with the production of printed sheets. And when 

 the great advance in the methods of mechanically setting 

 type and reproducing pictures was made a quarter of a 

 century ago, which for the moment seemed to threaten 

 to flood the market with more printed material than the 

 bookbinders could handle, the binders responded with 

 inventions of automatic machinery that could put covers 

 on books as fast as the printers could supply them. 



It is an interesting thing that, while the changes in 

 making book-covers and in bookbinding have undergone 

 so many revolutions, the shape of the finished volume 

 has remained practically unchanged for a thousand years. 

 The books of the ninth century which are still preserved 

 are practically the same shape as those made to-day. 

 The scroll, folded book, fan-leaved book, and probably 

 a number of other forms had all been tried in preceding 

 centuries; but the ideal form leaves bound between 

 two covers and free upon three edges was attained, 

 as we have seen, over a thousand years ago, and has 

 never been improved upon. 



In point of luxuriousness the modern book-cover is 

 sadly degenerate. Covers are still made of costly ma- 



