With padded covers of embossed leather, these special edition padded bindings were quite the novelty when the hit the market in the 1880s. Ranging in style from gilt decoration to fake alligator skin, these plush volumes of poetry were both fancy and still affordable.

Stuck inside? Maybe it’s time to redecorate!

J.C. Finn & Son trade cards (United States: Chas. W. Frost, ca. 1881). Chromolithograph.

Image depicts a girl applying adhesive to wallpaper strips and sloppily hanging them on the wall.

Just in case you needed another reason to wash your hands… 

The vibrant emerald green cloth on these bindings gets its shocking color from copper acetoarsenite, more commonly known as arsenic. The inorganic pigment was also famously used in Victorian era wallpaper. 

The bindings seen here, along with others in our collection, were tested by Melissa Tedone, Conservator at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, in December 2019 as part of the Poison Book Project. The sample is comprised largely of green cloth case bindings, but some green paper (upper left) also tested positive. They have since been properly rehoused, along with updated safe handling instructions. Read more about the Poison Book Project here.

Wishing you all a wonderful and nontoxic #greenpublishersbindingThursday!

The Wissahickon Boys Club was founded shortly after the Civil War for children of formerly enslaved and domestic African Americans in Germantown. The Club was the only one of its kind to serve African Americans. 

This bible belonged to Mary Sandwith, who also likely crafted the embroidered chemise. The bible itself is bound in calf and covered with canvas stitched with a vibrant bargello or flame stitch pattern.  Mary’s name is stitched on the spine, along with the date, 1743, her eleventh year.  Mary was the sister of Elizabeth Drinker, the famous diarist.  A similar chemise covers Elizabeth’s bible, which is in the collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

#OnThisDay in 1868, Secretary of State William Seward issued an official proclamation which certified the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Amendment guaranteed citizenship for “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved African Americans. It was also one of three Reconstruction Amendments which sought to codify equal rights for African Americans.

Here’s a fine finispiece to help you usher in what will hopefully be a fine weekend. And in the rare book world fine isn’t just fine, it’s even better than ‘very good.’

Niccolò Machiavelli. Tutte le opere di Niccolò Machiavell. (London, 1747.)

A former owner of this little volume lovingly crafted this book cover for it, illustrated and colored by hand.  The image matches the chromolithograph frontispiece found inside. 

Definitely a step up from the brown bag covers we used to put on our school books. 

Hannah J. Woodman. Sibylline verses; or, the mirror of fate. (Boston: Abel Tompkins, 1846)

Another Fore-edge Friday is upon us! These beautiful gauffered edges are on a binding presented “as a token of respect to Capt. Samuel Tatem by the crew of the steamer Major Reybold.” The Major Reybold was built in 1853 and served on the Delaware River between Salem and Philadelphia until 1906. 

The comprehensive Bible. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1854.)

Gentle reminder to double-check your work. Maybe triple-check.  

Errata slips such as this one were inserted into books to identify and alert the reader to important errors in the text that were noticed after the book was published.  Good thing, too, because last time we checked hands and heads were two very different things. 😳 

From: W.R. Wells. A new theory of disease. (Rochester, NY: Steam Press of C.D. Tracy & Co., 1862.)