Once upon a time, there were no books as we know them. You had to fiddle with fragile scrolls, or lug about cumbersome codices, if you were lucky enough to lay hands upon these imperfect media. Then came book-binding, the hand-craft of sewing together pages – first parchment, later paper – and covering them with protective, often decorative bookcloth.
It speaks volumes of book-binding’s role in the preservation of knowledge, that historians can make only a partial account of book-binding before it became widespread. The first evidence of European book-binding can be traced back to Northumbria in the 7th century. By the 12th century, ‘Romanesque’ bindings were being made at monasteries in France, England, Austria and Germany.
The craft flourished with the invention of the printing press, and the proliferation of books that followed. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Netherlandish book-binders developed the use of decorative tools, made to adorn covers with motifs such as dragons and fleurs-de-lis. During this period, the English book-binding trade was greatly influenced by specialists from overseas, especially the Low Countries.
With the invention of casing – whereby a book’s cover is stuck to the outermost pages – in the early 1800s, artisanal book-binding began a slow journey from universal necessity to the bibliophilic margins.
In the present day, book-binding is a rare, specialist craft, usually devoted to the creation or restoration of valuable, highly-cherished books. Such was the case when Ernest Wright commissioned a copy of a historic scissors-maker’s price list, from South Yorkshire book-binder, Heather Dewick.
Conserving the original
Book-binding today sometimes makes a statement about a book’s content – as is the case with Designer Bookbinders’ annual bound editions of works shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Heather’s Dewick’s approach hews closer to tradition, with a focus on restoration.
“I trained as a conservator, before working as a bookbinder, and I still use that approach in the work I do. Everything has to be reversible, and using quality materials,” says Heather. “Usually when I’m binding something, with restoration work, it’s trying to keep as much of the original as I can, or reproducing something suitable for that book.”
Choosing the right materials for a restoration project is key. You have to carefully match up materials to old ones, and be aware about the materials you’re using, because many are really acidic and can cause damage,” says Heather.
“I mostly work with book cloth of different types. Sometimes I make my own book cloth with fabric, and I use leather as well – mostly goatskin, which is an amazing material with so much craftspersonship behind it,” she says.
Tools of the craft
Heather works from the workshop at the bottom of her garden, near Sheffield. Within that cosy space is a cornucopia of tools, materials and antique machinery – much of it specialised for book-binding.
“There are lots of sharp things – hand tools are knives, shears, scissors, awls, bone folders,” says Heather.
“I’ve also got tools for making patterns on leather books, through gold finishing. They’ve got a pattern, you heat them up and you press them through gold leaf onto the cover. And I’ve got a machine that does that, for lettering, and loads of type, and book presses,” she says.
Some of this equipment, Heather purchased when she set up shop – “I don’t want to think how long ago”. Much of the rest was gifted to her by fellow book-binders.
“Over the years people have approached me to offer things they’ve got in their sheds,” she says. “Usually there’s some treasure – or some terrible rusty things. A lot of it is from other bookbinders who’ve retired, some of whom have passed on. It’s quite nice to keep that going, really.”
Restoring scissors-making heritage
The Ernest Wright team first met Heather as a book-binding client. We had a 1979 copy of an original 1909 price list from the Sheffield scissors-maker, William Marples & Son – and while we still loved studying the scissors and shears patterns detailed on the book’s pages, it was in need of restoration.
“The book had been republished in a paperback and was falling apart like paperbacks do. So I repaired it, and I made the cover as close as I could to an original copy, using some photos for reference,” says Heather.
“All the lettering on the front was done with old brass type, so I could virtually match all the typefaces to the original – but obviously without the age and handling. It might look quite bashed up in time!”
New scissors for an ancient practice
To thank Heather for her work restoring the Marples price list, we adapted a new pattern of scissors for her: the 11″ Bookbinder Scissors.
“The scissors Ernest Wright made me are more usually known as shears in book-binding terminology,” says Heather.. “Rather than being pointed on both blades, the top blade has a right-angle on the end – what you might call a ‘stop’. That means you can cut bookcloth – the covering material – which is what I use the shears for most.
“With a normal pair of scissors you cut right along something, whereas with these you chop, and then that flat top blade cuts at its point, so you’re cutting to a certain point on the book cloth. You can precisely cut out notches and corners, which helps you to engineer the book,” she says.
Future bound
Book-binding has often been perceived as endangered. Heather can recall friends and acquaintances predicting the craft’s demise since as early as the 1980s. What hope has the book-binder, in the age of the e-reader?
“I’ve had years of people telling me bookbinding is a dying art – why are you doing it? But it isn’t going anywhere at all. There are many aspects to it,” she says.
As well as restoring books for clients like Ernest Wright, Heather fills her days binding theses and fine art portfolios, creating journals and notebooks on commission, and occasionally binding limited print runs for specialist publishers such as letterpress printers.
For as long as there are people who cherish words, thought, art, it seems there will always be book-binders like Heather, impressing type, selecting fabric, carefully folding, piercing and cutting, setting leather with gold – and capturing words, for a while, in books.
No books were harmed in the writing of this article – although we drew heavily from Studies in the History of Book-Binding (1993), an excellent scholarly work by Mirjam M. Foot.
