How do you make a book?


Word and Image
August 17, 2016

The answer to that question depends on where and when you come from. As an apprentice working in the National Art Library I handle many books every day and I am always amazed at the variety of styles I come across. Every time I encounter a poor thing which is damaged I find myself suppressing my bibliomaniac horror and examining its secrets. Of course, there are hundreds of ways to make a book, but in this post I will briefly examine three books in the NAL from different eras and attempt to reveal their inner workings!

The earliest texts bound into a form we would recognise as a book were created by early Christian communities in Egypt. Few of these Coptic bindings survive, and they are mostly in fragments – but you can still tell a lot about how they were made from these pieces. Some fragments have survived from as long ago as the second century AD.

Fragment of a Coptic book.
A fragment of a Coptic binding. The thread has survived so we can tell how they were sewn, and you can see the cover made of layers of papyrus. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The text was written by hand on sheets of papyrus or parchment which were folded and arranged in sections. A section is a number of sheets folded and nested inside one another. The book was constructed from multiple sections, and this basic arrangement remains unchanged through the history of Western bookbinding to the present, except in cheaper modern paperbacks. The covers of the earliest Coptic books were made of sheets of papyrus pasted together to create a sturdy cover, but later wooden covers became more common.

The Coptic book was bound by sewing in and out of the sections. The cover was attached to the first section with loops of thread and the rest of the sections would have been added by sewing through the folds, making chain stitches down the spine to secure them together. The binding was completed by attaching the other cover in the same way as the first. There were many variations but this basic method remained the same.

This model demonstrates what a Coptic book would have looked like:

Coptic binding model
A model of a Coptic book made from modern materials. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Coptic binding link stitch
The link stitch joins the sections of the book together. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

As early as the fourth century AD Coptic books were being covered with decorated leather. The technique remained in use for almost a thousand years but in Europe new methods developed during the Middle Ages.

From this period most books were sewn with added ‘supports’. There were many types including cords, leather thongs and strips of vellum (the thinned skin of a calf). It is these supports that create the distinctive ridges on the spines of old books. Below is an example of a lovely little book covered in vellum and sewn on cords.

Vellum bound book
A book containing two different texts bound in vellum and stamped with the initials ‘HL’. / NAL Pressmark: 95.GG.63 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

By the time the printing press entered popular use books were almost exclusively being made of paper rather than papyrus or parchment, but the pages were still arranged in sections like the Coptic bindings. The covers were mostly wooden until the end of the fifteenth century when they began to be superseded by boards made by pasting together many sheets of paper.

17th century book sewn on cords
The book was made in 1664 and is printed on paper. It is damaged and the sections are beginning to separate. / NAL Pressmark: 95.GG.63 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

This type of book was bound by sewing through the folds of the sections and around the supports. The spine was glued and covered in waste paper once it had been hammered into a rounded shape.These developments allowed larger amounts of text to be bound together more securely. The problem with the Coptic technique is that the only thing holding the book together is thread – if that fails the whole book falls apart. With the use of supports and glue the structure has a much greater chance of staying intact.

17th century book sewn on cords
The vellum is cracked and you can see the cords it is sewn on, and the remains of another text glued onto the spine to strengthen it. / NAL Pressmark: 95.GG.63 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Model of book sewn on cords
This model shows how the thread loops around the cord to secure it. More complicated techniques include double cords and more loops. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Now we pass to the nineteenth century, an era of increasingly cheaper production which brought books within the reach of the masses. Machines for sewing the book, tightly woven book cloth for covering rather than leather, and many other innovations reduced costs.

19th century case binding
This diatribe against poor workmanship is a charming example of a case binding made with book cloth. / NAL Pressmark: 306.F.31 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
19th century case binding
It is covered with book cloth and decorated with printed foil. / NAL Pressmark: 306.F.31 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
19th century case binding
It was published in London in 1884 and has decorated initials. / NAL Pressmark: 306.F.31 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The cloth bound nineteenth book was constructed by sewing around supports as before. The supports used in this kind of book – a case binding – were usually linen tapes. The thread went along the fold of the section and came out to pass over the tapes, and at each end were chain stitches.

Model of a case binding.
This model shows the internal structure of a case binding without the case covering it. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Model of a case binding showing sewing method
Here you can see the sewing thread passing over the tape in a long stitch. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The spine was glued and covered in paper and loosely woven cloth which extended over its sides. This overhang of cloth was glued to the blank or coloured outermost pages (the endpapers) along with the tapes. If you look closely inside the covers of books in this style you can see the outlines of the tapes making just a slight bulge under the paper.

Case bound book with tapes under endpaper
A different book where you can clearly see the tapes underneath the endpaper. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The ‘case’ of a case binding is the cover boards (now boards were being made from pulped rags and rope) and a piece of card or paper the length of the spine with book cloth glued on to cover them. In this style the sewing supports do not lace into the covers like they do on older bindings, instead the case is simply glued onto the endpapers and the book is complete.

As is this very brief survey of bookbinding techniques throughout the centuries. Of course, nowadays they usually just pile the pages up and glue them together!

Interested in bookbinding? We have plenty of books on the subject at the National Art Library as well as an incredible collection of examples of the art. Search for bookbinding under ‘subject browse (NAL subjects)’ on our catalogue here: catalogue.nal.vam.ac.uk.

 

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Comments

Hi Lynn,

Interested in bookbinding? We have plenty of books on the subject at the National Art Library as well as an incredible collection of examples of the art. Search for bookbinding under ‘subject browse (NAL subjects)’ on our catalogue here: catalogue.nal.vam.ac.uk.

All the best,
Samuel Revell

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