DECORATED BINDINGS FROM MY COLLECTION: A WEB EXHIBITION

By Brenda Scragg

 

From the middle of the 19th century gold blocked and decorated bindings on cloth as opposed to leather became commonplace reaching their most elaborate in the 1890s.  For the most part these bindings were designed by artists best known for book illustration, most were unsigned but many were by the same artist who illustrated the book on which they appeared.  They were produced commercially and thus were nor examples of craft binding.  The following examples are a few of my favourite designs.

 

  

 

Robert Blatchford: A Book about Books,

London, Clarion Press, 1903.

 

The volumes contain several textual decorations by Frank Chesworth and the binding is also by Chesworth being signed at the bottom left with a cartouche.  The attractive design of the scholar reading admirably reflects the content of the book.

 

 

 

 

The Muses’ Library was issued by Lawrence and Bullen at the turn of the 19th century.  All volumes were uniform in size, a small narrow 8vo.  The cloth used was smooth green buckram and each volume had the same unattributed gold blocked design on the front board showing a fanciful damsel crowning a seated muse reading.  At the top of the design the series title is enclosed in a cartouche.

 

 

Love Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning including the Sonnets from the Portuguese.

The Lover’s Library.

London, John Lane, 1902.

 

The Lover’s Library was edited by Frederic Chapman.  At least 10 different volumes of love poems were issued in uniform format, 12mo. Each with an unsigned Art Nouveau design on the front board and spine.  All edges are gilt.  A variety of colours was used including sage green and violet.  All volumes were available in cloth at 1/6 each or leather at 2/-.  The text of this volume is printed in green and pale lilac.

 

 

 

 

Thomas Love Peacock. Gryll Grange. Illustrated by F.H. Townsend.

Macmillan,1896.

The binding designed by A.A. Turbayne.  Royal blue cloth with gold blocking.  Signed in a small cartouche at the bottom left. A volume in the Peacock Series issued by Macmillan in the 1890s.  This design shows a stylised Peacock on the front cover, the decoration continuing on the spine.  The back board is undecorated.  The endpapers are a light orange all-over pattern taken from the peacock’s tail.  Some of the volumes in the series were later re-issued with the cover design blind stamped.

Albert Angus Turbayne was born in Boston, U.S.A. in 1866 but later came to London working for the London County Council School of Photoengraving and Lithography.  His principal artistic work was the design of books and bindings.  He won a bronze medal for binding design at the Paris 1900 Exhibition.

 

 

 

Oliver Goldsmith. The Traveller. Illustrated by Birket Foster.London, David Bogue c.1868.

 

           This binding is considered to be either the design of Albert Henry Warren or in his style.  The central motive is in the orientalist style and the surrounding arabesque flowers are gilt stamped on brown terracotta vertical grain cloth.  The edges of the boards are bevelled.  Decoration on both boards.  The same design in purple cloth was used on the 1868 edition published by Routledge.  Gleeson White writing in the Studio in 1894 suggested that one of the maxims of binding design was its relevance to the subject of the book.  In this case there is no reason why an orientally inspired design was chosen.

 

 

 

 

Charles Stuart Calverley.  Verses & Fly Leaves.

London,George Bell and Sons, 1901.

 

This is volume 2 in the collected edition of the works of C.S. Calverley each with bindings designed by Gleeson White.  There were several different printings from the first edition in 1885 each using Gleeson White’s design.  Gleeson White was a talented designer of book covers but is best known for his writings on art history.  The binding is in olive green linengold blocked with a design of leaves and circles.  The design is on the front board, spine and part of the back board.  Top edge is gilt.

 

 

 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Ballads and Sonnets.

London, Ellis and White, 1882.

 

The binding of this edition was designed by Rossetti.  The dark blue buckram has 3 gold blocked rectangles on both back and front boards and 2 on the spine.  The background of small gold circles has a pattern of single flowers scattered across.  The pale blue endpapers have a similar design printed in dark blue.

 

 

 

Aucassin and Nicolette. Translated from the Old French by Eugene Mason with coloured illustrations by Maxwell Armfield.

London,Dent, 1910.

 

The binding is unsigned but may be by Armfield.  Not a prolific illustrator Armfield spent most of his working life as an art lecturer.  The binding on white buckram with the title in gothic script in gold has a symmetrical repeating desin of flowers and line motives all enclosed in a decorative frame.

 

 

 

Old World Love Stories…translated from the French by Eugene Mason.  Illustrated and decorated by Reginald L. Knowles.

London,Dent,1913.

 

Reginald Lionel Knowles is probably best known for  several floriated designs he produced for the title pages and endpapers of early volumes in the Everyman Library.  Each story has a similar design enclosing the first page of text.  The binding in beige buckram has an elaborate design of flowers and leaves on the trellis background blocked in gold.  The same design covers the spine.

 

 

 

Edmond Holmes.  The Triumph of Love.

London and New York, John Lane, 1903.

 

The 63 sonnets and the title page each have an initial letter designed by Laurence Housman.  The binding is also designed by Housman,  The sage green buckram has the author and title in gold.  Six fanciful ‘art nouveau’ flower motives are printed in blue.  The spine is similarly decorated.