Full Description
Henry Benjamin Wheatley (1838-1917) was a prolific writer on bibliography, literature and the arts. As founder of the Index Society, and editor of The Bibliographer, he was also involved in the foundation of the Library Association. In that context he wrote several works on library topics, and this volume contains two works on bookbinding, Remarkable Bindings in the British Museum (1889) and Bookbinding Considered as a Fine Art, Mechanical Art and Manufacture (1882). The former contains descriptions and illustrations of 62 examples of bookbinding then in the British Museum library, notable as beautiful examples from different countries and periods, or different materials, or for their historic interest. The second piece was a paper read to the Society of Arts in 1880. It outlines the history of bookbinding styles in different countries, and then discusses it both as an art form and from a practical point of view, with illustrations.
Contents
1. Bindings in ivory, metal, enamel, painting; 2. Bindings in leather; 3. Bindings in embroidered silk and velvet; 4. Italian and German bindings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; 5. French bindings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; 6. English bindings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; 7. English and French bindings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; Early history of bookbinding; Binding in Germany and the Netherlands; Binding in Italy; Binding in France; Binding in England; Binding as a fine art; Binding as a mechanical art; Binding as a manufacture; Practical points connected with binding; Appendix; Discussion; Catalogue of specimens of binding lent for exhibition; List of engravings.
