APPENDIX

Summary

The history of Bookbinding has still to be written, but much material has, at different times, been collected for the purpose, and I will, without pretending to any kind of completeness, notice some few of the contributions on the subject that have come under my notice. John Bagford, the bookseller, who died in the early part of the last century, made a collection of specimens of bindings (mostly of stamped calf), which he stripped off the books themselves. These are in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, where there are also a large number of fine specimens of early bindings, which have been specially catalogued in the classed catalogue of manuscripts under the division of drawings. Dibdin's “Bibliographical Decameron,” 1817, contains much information about Binding and Binders, but Mr. Charles Tuckett was one of the first to make arrangements for the publication of fac-similes of fine bindings, and, in 1846, he issued the first part of a work, entitled “Specimens of Ancient and Modern Binding, selected from the Library of the British Museum, with an Introduction containing the History of Bookbinding from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.” The book did not meet with sufficient recognition, and eight plates only were published. The history of Bookbinding, therefore, never saw the light. About this time Mr. Joseph Cundall read a paper before the Society of Arts on “Decorative Art Applied to Bookbinding,” which was printed in the Transactions, and illustrated with some fine specimens.