Be still our hearts! We have fallen in love with this woodblock printed paper and scaleboard binding, which seems fitting as the text within features letters on courtship and marriage. #WoodcutWednesday

A Series of letters on courtship and marriage. Hudson [N.Y.] : Printed by Ashbel Stoddard, at his printing-office and book-store, corner of Warren and Second-streets, and sold wholesale and retail., 1804.  127, [1] p. ;  14 cm

Who said geometry isn’t a piece of cake? 

Our copy of The Childs Pictorial Geometry (Hartford, 1841) on display in our current exhibition, The Living Book : New Perspectives on Form and Function, is one of many books we have that aims to teach its readers. On each page a boy and a girl discuss their surroundings in terms of geometry. The presence of the girl throughout the book is significant because girls were not depicted as active learners of math or science very often. 

The Childs Pictorial Geometry. [Hartford] : Published by E.B. & E.C. Kellogg, 1841. 

The floral motif of this printed-pattern bookcloth nearly obscures the blind and gilt stamping on the front cover of our copy of A Description of the City of New York, published in 1847.

Decorated bookcloth, including printed-pattern and ribbon-embossed cloth, peaked in popularity in the late 1830s into the 1840s. The trend became less popular beginning in the 1850s, when heavy gilt-stamped designs on ungrained bookcloth dominated the market.

Browse the Library Company’s database of 19th-Century Cloth Bindings to see more!

Holley, O. L. 1847, A description of the city of New York New York : J. Disturnell 1847. 10 cm x 15 cm x 1 cm

This delicate incire paper-cutting lives inside our copy of Leisure Hours (1844), right where the reader placed it. Come check out this and other items found in books on view now in our main gallery as part of our current exhibition, The Living Book: New Perspective on Form and Function. 

Andrews, E. A. (Ethan Allen), 1787-1858. Leisure hours: : a choice collection of readings in prose. / By Prof. E.A. Andrews.. New illustrated edition. Boston: : T.H. Carter & Co. and B.B. Mussey., 1844. [3], 6-340 p., [5] leaves of plates :  ill. ;  20 cm

Library Company conservators have gathered a wide assortment of materials highlighting new perspectives on the material culture of the book. This multimedia exhibition will look at the book as an object and a tool for education, reflection, and fun.

Opening TODAY!! 

The Living Book : New Perspectives on Form and Function curated by the Library Company’s conservation department, where the love of the book knows no bounds, but maybe all bindings.                           

Tomorrow we welcome Michael Zinman, renowned collector of Americana and inventor of the critical mess theory of collecting, to speak at our Annual Meeting reception and celebrate the opening of our exhibit, The Living Book: New Perspectives on Form and Function. Mr. Zinman has given the Library Company some amazing additions to our collection including texts for the blind and many with unique bindings, such as this dos-a-dos, Psalms and Hymns (1810), on display in the gallery. 

Psalms and Hymns (New York, 1810).  The Michael Zinman Binding Collection.

Life and Loves: adventures with books and booksellers (highly enjoyable and often successful); with women (entertaining but a non-starter in this environment); and with my epiphanies du jour (invariably disastrous); in all, a merry dessert for a merry evening. To attend, register HERE. 

Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack forecasts two solar and two lunar eclipses in 1751. Eclipses have a lot of superstition around them, especially before the Age of Enlightenment, but maybe they meant nothing at all a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. #maythefourthbewithyou #totaleclipseoftheheart

Poor Richard improved… . Philadelphia [Pa.]: : Printed and sold by B. Franklin, and D. Hall., [1750]

You may recall book conservator, Alice Austin, showing off this ca. 1850 handmade tunnel book depicting the Thames Tunnel thoroughfare, posted in September 2015. Since then, Alice has continued her research on tunnel books and will be presenting on the subject at The Living Book Symposium on Thursday, May 18, 2017! 

Catch Alice, Mark Dimunation, Chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, and Russell Maret, type designer and private press printer, as they share their unique perspectives on the book. For more info, visit the event page HERE. Hope to see you  there! 

[Handmade tunnel book showing an enclosed thoroughfare] [graphic].
Published  ca. 1850. Description  1 item:  watercolor and pencil;  folded to 9 x 9 cm (3.5 x 3.57 in.) (accordion format)

A precarious chain of events is illustrated in our copy of The Indestructible One Syllable Primer. #caturday

This circa 1878 children’s primer was considered indestructible because it is printed on flexible and durable cloth material. Today we could compare this to the durability of board books for young children. 

The Indestructible one syllable primer. : For home and school use. one hundred illustrations.. New York: : – McLoughlin Bros., [1878?] [22] leaves :  ill. ;  20 cm

Need a cure for a runny nose, hay fever, cold in head, deafness, AND headache? This #WrapperWednesday brings us the inside front wrapper of A Romance of Boston (circa 1888). Published by the Abbott’s Menthol Plaster Co. of Worcester, Massachusetts, A Romance of Boston is a fictional correspondence between three women as well as an advertisement for a variety of medicinal products, including this ad for Abbott’s Menthol Snuff.

A romance of Boston. Worcester, Mass. : Abbott’s Menthol Plaster Co., [1888?] 31, [1] p. ;  16 cm.