BOOKBINDING SAMMELBAND

BAXTER, JOHN,

The Sister Arts, or A Concise and Interesting View of the Nature and History of Paper-Making, Printing and Bookbinding: Being designed to unite Entertainment with Information concerning those Arts, with which the Cause of Literature is peculiarly connected. Steel engraved frontispiece and 2 plates, London, J. Baxter, 1809 [bound with] [MARTIN, G.] The Bookbinder’s Complete Instructor In All the Branches of Binding; Particularly Marbling, Staining, and Gilding the Covers and Edges of Books, with all the late improvements and discoveries in That Useful Art, 40.pp, Peterhead, P. Buchan, 1823 [bound with] Books for the Young: No. 1. Writing – Paper-Making – Printing – Books – Types, 112pp., London, John Cassell, 1850, 12mo, red morocco, ruled in gilt, t.e.g., spine gilt.

An interesting sammelband of three works on the processes that go into constructing a book, from paper to binding. 

The first work, The Sister Arts, by John Baxter, covers bookbinding from pp/94-104. The three plates each show one of the trades described. John Baxter (1781-1858) was in business as printer, bookbinder, and bookseller throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, and published a number of topographical works. He introduced several innovations in printing machinery; his second son was George Baxter, the inventor of oil colour printing.

The second work, The Bookbinder’s Complete Instructor by G. Martin, originally formed a chapter in Thomas Martin’s The Circle of the Mechanical Arts, published in 1813. There are no illustrations, but the text does give detailed descriptions of forwarding and tooling techniques. The sections on the colouring of book edges and the marbling of covers were lifted from The Whole Art of Bookbinding (1818)

 [Pollard and Potter, 88, 97 Middleton, 13]