“As the snake moves,” that’s the theme for this week’s #Fore Edge Friday. The wavy patterns on the edges, covers, and endpapers on this tooled and blind-stamped, half-bound book are from Carew’s Survey of Cornwall printed in London by Thomas Bensley for J. Faulder and Rees and Curtis in 1811. The marbled-paper pattern is what the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers identifies as Serpentine.
The pattern begins with a Turkish base. “A comb with one set of teeth is drawn through the bath twice vertically, once in either direction with the second pass halving the first. This step is repeated horizontally. Then the final step is to draw a comb, with one set of teeth set at slightly wider intervals, through the bath once vertically in wavy lines reminiscent of the way in which a snake moves.“ As we’ve noted before, when marbling the edges of a book, the text block is clamped tightly shut, and once dipped, the excess fluid is blown or shaken off quickly to prevent it from running into the book. Once dry, the marbled edges are burnished.
The Cornish antiquary Richard Carew (1555–1620) first published his survey of Cornwall in 1602. This 1811 edition includes Carew’s Survey with additional notes by the Cornish historian Thomas Tonkin (1678–1742), published here from Tonkin’s original manuscripts by Francis Basset, 1st Baron de Dunstanville (1757-1835), who dedicates the publication to Carew’s descendant, the British politician Reginald Pole Carew (1753-1835).
The frontispiece is a portrait of Richard Carew from 1586, rendered here as a stipple engraving by English engraver William Evans (active 1797-1856). Carew is depicted holding a book with the Latin inscription Invita Morte Vita (In spite of life and death), and in the background there is an allegorical hammer and anvil with the Italian inscription Chi'verace durerà (Who is true will last).
Our copy includes two signed letters from de Dunstanville. One is to an anonymous correspondent, while the other is to the Irish statesman and author John Wilson Croker (1780–1857).
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Bubbles and vacuoles! At least, that’s what we see in these patterns on the covers, edges, and endpapers of this gold-stamped, calf-skin half binding for the 6th edition of John Tyndall’s 2-volume Fragments of Science, published in London by Longmans, Green, and Co. in 1879. The pattern appears to be what the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers identifies as Zebra.
The pattern begins with a Turkish base, with the first colors constricting as others follow and become the ‘vein’ colors for the latter thrown inks. A comb with one set of teeth is then drawn through the bath twice vertically, once in either direction with the second pass halving the first. The last step is to sprinkle or splash on one or more colors, which in the Zebra pattern are usually quite large drops. As we’ve noted before, when marbling the edges of a book, the text block is clamped tightly shut, and once dipped, the excess fluid is blown or shaken off quickly to prevent it from running into the book. Once dry, the marbled edges are burnished.
John Tyndall was a prominent 19th-century Irish physicist who was also a science teacher and proselytizer for the cause of science, spending a significant amount time disseminating science to the general public, including this series of essays. The first edition was published by Longmans, Green in 1871. In America it was published in 1871 by D. Appleton as Fragments of Science for Unscientific People, which we also hold.
Also, be sure to check out Othmer Library’s and the Library Company’s #Fore Edge Friday entries for today!
This week’s example for #Fore Edge Friday comes from our copy of British editor and Milton specialist William Aldis Wright‘s 1903 critical edition of The Poetical Works of John Milton printed by John and Charles Felix Clay for Cambridge University Press. It is bound in what is known as a prize binding, a finely-bound book given as a prize or award at European educational institutions. This tradition is known from at least the mid-17th century, and in England special prize bindings persisted until the mid-20th century. Prize editions are often bound in dark goatskin with raised bands, gold stamping and tooling, the cover stamped with the logo of the school, and the edges treated with gilding or, as in this case, marbling.
This particular prize binding was given to a student named C. A. Fletcher by England’s famed Charterhouse School, and the cover bears the school’s crest with its motto “Deo Dante Dedi” (God having given, I gave). The abbreviated text stamped in gold at the bottom of the spine, “Schol. Carthus,” makes reference to the school’s original early-17th-century founding on the site of an old Carthusian monastery. To this day pupils and alumni of Charterhouse are referred to as Carthusians. The edges on all three sides of the text block and on the endpapers have been marbled in what is called a Spanish pattern.
According to the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers, the pattern begins with a Turkish base, created by throwing colors “onto the surface of the bath using a marbling brush. The first colors thrown tend to constrict as other[s] follow and become the ‘vein’ colors for the latter thrown inks.” Then, as the paper is laid onto the bath, it is agitated back and forth in regular motions, repeatedly to create the rippling patterns that can be seen here most evidently in the endpapers. We think, however, that the edge marbling might just be the Turkish pattern. As we have mentioned before, when marbling the edges of a book, the text block is clamped tightly shut, and once dipped, the excess fluid is blown or shaken off quickly to prevent it from running into the book. Once dry, the marbled edges are burnished.
The Washington site highlights an interesting legend about how this pattern originated:
The pattern was created at the beginning of the 17th century. Marbling lore has suggested . . . that it was discovered when a marbler's assistant who was nursing a hangover and had shaky hands, laid the paper into the bath (to pull up a finished paper) and as a consequence of the unsteady hands pulled a pattern with the linear, gradated lines characteristic of this pattern.
This week’s #Fore Edge Friday example is a 3-volume set of The Poetical Works of William Cowper printed in Chiswick by Charles Whittingham for the London publisher William Pickering in 1843. The volumes are bound in gold-tooled and stamped calf skin and all edges and endpapers are marbled in what is called a Nonpareil pattern.
According to the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers, the “ pattern is created when the desired colors are dropped sequentially onto the bath using some sort of implement to regulate the drop sizes. . . . a comb with one set of teeth set at intervals of 15-30mm is drawn through the bath horizontally, once in either direction with the second pass halving the first. Then another comb with teeth set at 2-3 mm is drawn once across the bath vertically (or horizontally).”
As we have mentioned before, when marbling the edges of a book, the text block is clamped tightly shut, and once dipped, the excess fluid is blown or shaken off quickly to prevent it from running into the book. Once dry, the marbled edges are burnished.
The publisher William Pickering thought of himself as a modern-day Aldus Manutius because of his well-printed (thanks to the Whittinghams’ Chiswick Press), pocket-sized, and carefully-edited editions. Pickering even used Aldus’s famous anchor and dolphin printer’s mark with the Latin phrase Aldi Discip Anglus (the English Disciple of Aldus), as can be seen here on the title page. This set forms part of Pickering’s famous 57-volume series “The Aldine Edition of the British Poets.” Our Cowper set is a second edition, the first being published in 1830. The engraved frontispiece portrait of William Cowper is by Henry Robinson.
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Here are some nonpareil bindings, edges, and endpapers for some nonpareil (e.g., unparalleled) Historical Sketches of Statesmen Who Flourished in the Time of George III by Henry, Lord Brougham, the second edition printed in three volumes in London by William Clowes and Sons for Charles Knight & Co., 1839-43. The volumes are half-bound in gold-stamped and blind-tooled calf skin with cover papers, edges, and endpapers marbled in what the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers identifies as a Nonpareil pattern. We have described the process for making this pattern in a previous post.
The author, Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1777-1868), was a prolific writer on science, philosophy, and history, and published this set after his stint as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (1830-34). The volumes are dedicated to his wife Mary Anne Eden, 1st Baroness Brougham and Vaux (1785–1865).
The set is replete with with engravings of its subjects and each volume bears a frontispiece of a statesman. Shown here are the frontispiece portraits of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (volume 1) engraved by William Holl the Younger after an engraving by Edward Fisher from a painting by Richard Brompton, and George Washington (volume 2) engraved by William Humphrys after a painting by Gilbert Stuart. Despite the prominence of Washington’s portrait as the frontispiece to volume 2, Brougham only spends five pages on him. Nevertheless, he calls Washington “the greatest man of our own or of any age. . . . It will be the duty of the Historian and the Sage in all ages to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man; and until time shall be no more will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and in virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington!”
