| Glossary
A-G
adhesive binding
an adhesive binds the gatherings together
without sewing or wire-stitching; the clamped book has
folds at the
back removed or ground away leaving roughened edges,
often stopping just short of the head and tail (so that
the book looks sewn); caoutchouc or gutta-percha (rubber-based)
adhesive used first, according to GG,
William Hancock, English, 1836; used first according
to JC,
Thomas Hancock, ca. 1840;
later animal glues used
| Alternate terms: |
caoutchouc binding |
| |
gutta-percha binding |
| |
cut-back binding |
| |
perfect binding |
| |
unsewn binding |
albumen
egg white; proteinaceous and soluble in water,
coagulated by heating; ingredient of glair (GG)
all-over design
term used to describe the design that is carried
over the entire book cover, not unrelated decorations or
embellishments
of a cover and spine (ED)
| Alternate term: |
overall design |
American joint
in binding when the boards are set away from the
back or spine so that a space is left into which the covering
material
is pushed to form a groove or gully (GG)
| Alternate terms: |
french joint |
| |
grooved joint |
| |
sunk joint |
| |
french groove |
American Russia (American russia, E.)
strong, split cowhide for book covers (GG)
| Alternate terms: |
imitation Russia |
| |
Russia cowhide |
antique
bookbinding term
used to refer to blind tooling, especially that done
before the introduction
of gold tooling in Europe
in the mid-15th c.; an emulation of an “old” style
(ED,
JC)
antique gold edges
a dulling finish given to gilt edges, either by
leaving the gold unburnished or by washing the burnished
gold with
water; designs are sometimes tooled onto these edges, blind
in patterns, usually a diaper (GG)
antique laid paper
paper formed on a hand papermaking mould
where the wire cover is woven in a pattern comprising
horizontal wires
(laid lines) secured together with two intertwining thinner
wires, spaced about one inch apart (chain lines); usually
along the chain lines, this cover is attached to the bottom
section of the wooden mould frame with thin wire to the
ribs underneath; as the watery pulp is attracted to the
latter areas, a larger number of fibers accumulate on either
side of the chain lines, and these appear as dark shadows
in transmitted light (DH)
| Alternate terms: |
single-face
laid paper
|
| |
vergé (F.)
|
| See also: |
laid paper |
antique wove paper
paper formed on a hand papermaking mould
where the wire cover is woven as in a plain textile weave;
cover is attached
to the bottom section of the wooden mould frame with thin
wire to the ribs underneath; as the watery pulp is attracted
to the latter areas, a larger number of fibers accumulate
over the ribs, and these appear as dark shadows in transmitted
light (DH)
| Alternate
terms: |
single-face wove paper
|
| |
vélin (F.)
|
| See also: |
wove
paper
|
aquatint
an intaglio process
by which a tonal image is created through the manipulation
of
either powdered rosin or
a vehicle-rich
varnish; the areas of the copper plate that are left exposed
after the application and melting of the rosin or between
the islands of the reticulated varnish are etched in an
acid bath, forming a pitted surface that holds the ink;
by burnishing parts of the aquatint with a smooth piece
of metal in a handle, whiter areas within the darks are
produced; by “stopping out” large areas during
etching, a variety of shades can be produced, emulating
watercolor washes, hence the name for this process
(BG)
arabesque
embellishments taken from Greek and Islamic
ornamentation usually of the acanthus leaf and vine, flowers,
other leaf
shapes, curved lines, etc.; any intertwined design that
is calligraphic in nature; used often for borders (GG, ED)
architectural binding
a design on the covers using architectural
themes (GG)
| Alternate
terms: |
à la cathèdrale binding
|
| |
cathedral binding
|
arming press
originally, a hand-operated, screw press
in which heated metal blocks or stamps were used to impress
coat-of-arm
designs into leather covers; in 1832, the screw press was
replaced by a lever-operated ones, such as the Imperial
Arming Press; the increased pressure from the latter allowed
the use of much larger metal stamps to impress designs
into book-cloth in blind, gold, and/or ink (GG, ED)
armorial
featuring an owner’s
coat of arms, usually stamped in gold on leather (JC)
art gilt edges
book edges colored under gold to complement
the color of the binding material (GG)
assisted morocco
inferior goatskin, embossed with the
characteristic grain of better qualities of morocco and
boarded (GG)
author’s
binding
copies of a book bound to the specifications
of the author for presentation purposes, usually in a
better style and
materials than the edition binding (GG, JC)
aux petits fers
decoration on book covers resulting from
the use of a combination of small, single tools to build
up complete patterns (GG)
azured tool, azured tooling
a finishing tool
with usually diagonal, closely hatched (parallel lines)
lines either
without any other design
or contained inside the outline of a design, such as a
leaf; so called from the use in heraldry of fine horizontal
lines that symbolized the color “blue”; use
dates from 1550; azured stamping is a mechanized technique that mimics the look of azured tooling (GG, ED)
| Alternate
terms: |
hatched tooling
|
| |
milled stamping (hatched and crosshatched)
|
| |
decorative finishing tool
|
back
the part of the book formed when gatherings
are sewn or wire-stitched to produce a flat surface (or
the surface
to be coated in an adhesive binding); may be kept flat,
or rounded and backed to give a convex shape (GG, JC)
| Alternate
terms: |
hatched tooling
|
| |
milled stamping (hatched and crosshatched)
|
| See also: |
spine
|
back corner
beveled, upper and lower corners of both
boards at the joint from the front of the board to the
back; results
in easier opening of the boards and provides room for headbands
(GG, ED)
| Alternate
term: |
nicking corner
|
back matter
the printed material following the text, such as appendices,
endnotes, glossary, bibliography, index (GG)
| Alternate terms: |
postlims |
| |
subsidaries (E.) |
| |
end-matter
|
| See also:: |
front matter |
backing
after sewing and reinforcing the back with an adhesive,
the back of the book is rounded to form a convex shape;
with the textblock is clamped in a lying press and the
cover boards in place at the joint, the rounded gatherings
are coaxed with a backing hammer into a curved shape, working
from the center of the textblock to each side to create
the fanned out shape of the gatherings, the first and last
of which extend to the outer edge the boards; 1850, Charles
Starr, English, took out patent for a backing machine (GG, ED)
backing press
an iron, horizontal press with one fixed and one moveable
jaw; the top part of each jaw slopes slightly to aid in
deflecting the hammer blows during backing (ED)
| Alternate
term: |
lying press |
bands
the covered, raised cords, real or false, on the spine
that divide it into sections (ED, JC)
basil
an unsplit sheepskin that is vegetable-tanned; a poor-quality
leather, sometimes artificially grained to simulate more
costly leather; England from early 19th c.; sheepskin that
is dyed a crimson color and heavily polished, used for
ledgers, etc. (GG, ED, JC)
beveled
boards/ beveled edges
usually 45° angle
cut, sawn, or sanded; in binding, the shape given to
thick boards,
before covering, sloping
from the outside to the inside of the board, usually stopping
just before reaching the inside edge to leave a small section
of the original board square; makes thick boards look thinner,
less clumsy and emulates earlier binding styles using beveled-edged
wooden boards (GG, JC)
| Alternate term: |
chamfered edge |
binder’s
board
general term referring
to a composite board consisting of laminates of paper;
boards are 0.012
inch (12 points) and stiff; made from a variety of
fibers; in early
books, boards were planks of wood, usually oak; boards
provide protection to textblock and are almost always fully
covered with one or more materials that attach the boards
to the back at the spine and carry decoration on the outside
of the book (GG, APPA, ED, JC)
binder’s
embossed signature
in addition to
binder’s
tickets and pallets, some binders blind-embossed their
names into the front flyleaf,
see Allen (RBS Course Timeline) (RE)
binder’s
ticket
a small, printed
label, located on an inside cover (not to be confused
with the bookseller’s
ticket); a mottled orange, gray, or black discoloration
is often present on
these tickets printed on coated paper, where white lead
has been used as a pigment (GG, JC)
binder’s
title
the title as lettered on the binding (cover or spine),
that is different from that on the title page, or on the
original cover if rebound or on the original spine if rebacked (GG)
binding press
small, bench presses as well as tall standing presses;
pressing was used in a number of processes, primarily to
flat newly folded gatherings, and to keep lined boards
and covered books flat while drying from one bookbinding
step to another (GG)
blank leaves
leaves (2 consecutive
pages) that are not printed upon, but are part of the
imposition
plan of the book; so-called
printer’s blanks should be distinguished from binder’s
blanks, which are added to the front and back of the book
and called endpapers (JC)
| Alternate term: |
printer’s blanks |
See also: |
endpapers |
blind tooling, blind stamping
tooling or stamping impressed into the surface of covering
material without any gold or ink; hand finishing tools,
heated, are pressed into dampened leather, with a resulting
darkening (drawing color) of the leather in the blind tooled
areas; stamp panels into leather for overall, larger designs;
heated stamps pressed into grained cloth with an arming
press, which causes a depressed flattening of the grain
and a slight darkening (GG , ED, JC)
| Alternate terms: |
blinded-in |
| |
blind blocking (E.) |
| |
à froid (F., blind tooling)
|
| |
tooling |
bocasin
a fine-quality buckram (GG) bole
usually a red clay, although bole can be white (similar
to kaolin or China clay); dusted or mixed with glue and
painted on edge(s) of book under gold to give the gold
greater depth and luster; also serves as the size onto
gold leaf is applied; because this is water-gilding, the
gold can be burnished (as opposed to oil-gilding which
cannot be burnished); best bole is from Bohemia, Italy,
and Armenia (GG, GS, ED)
| Alternate terms: |
Armenian bole |
| |
red bole |
| |
gilders red clay |
| |
red burnish gold size |
book cover
covers can be made of paper, board, stiff cloth, or leather,
used singly or in combination, and usually covered with
material(s) (leather, paper, and/or cloth) that hold the
book covers to the textblock and that often serves as a
surface for decoration; includes the upper and lower covers,
but not the spine (GG, ED)
bookbinder
a person who binds
books for a living; until the 18th c., bookbinders
either temporarily
bound sheets for sale
by
the bookseller (so-called trade bindings) or were commissioned
to bind single books according to the owner’s wishes;
once edition binding became the normal for most published
books, the bookbinder could either carry on as before,
or join a large bindery to work on some aspect of edition
bindings (GG )
| Alternate terms: |
bespoke binder |
|
craft bookbinder |
| |
miscellaneous binder |
book-cloth
1. any of a variety of dress textiles used to cover unique
books
2. 1825, Archibald Leighton, English, developed a filler
for the cloth so that glue could not penetrate through
the cloth; by 1830s, to imitate leather and silk, book-cloth
was patterned with a grain
(GG, JC)
book-cloth color
usually refers
to the color of book-cloth prepared by dyeing the fabric
and then filling
it with colored paste;
a bright
or deep red color was popular from 1848–1860, see
Allen (1998); for a discussion of systems for identifying
color related to book-cloth, see Tanselle (1967)
bookplate
a printed label
that includes the owner’s name, and
usually the words “ex libris” and a design;
usually located on the front pastedown (GG, JC)
bookstamp
a stamp, rubber
or metal, used to impress in ink the owner’s
name in the book; also a blind, embossment (JC)
border
1. a continuous, decorative design arranged around lettering
and/or an image on a page or cover; can be made from a
mortised wood- or metal block comprising the entire border
or made up of individual pieces of rule, type flowers
2. a frame made by either palleted, filleted or stamped
lines, or by building up sections of the border with smaller
decorative tools; in blind, gold, or ink
(GG, JC)
| Alternate terms: |
arabesque border |
| |
border decoration |
| |
ruled border |
| |
box |
| |
box-in |
boss
raised ornament in silver or brass on book covers, upper
and/or lower; usually located at the corners; protects
highly decorated covers from abrasion, for embellishment
alone, or occasionally, in the 19th c., to emulate much
earlier covers (GG, ED, JC)
bound book
term that refers to a book in which the cords (or some
other material, such as thongs) are laced through the boards,
as opposed to a cased-in book (GG, ED, JC)
| Alternate terms: |
laced-in boards book |
|
laced-on boards book |
| See also: |
case |
brass stamp
a plate of brass
engraved (etched and/or routed) with the image in reverse
and in relief
for stamping (blocking,
E.) leather and cloth covers and spine: blind, gold, or
in ink; occasionally, the engraver’s name appears
somewhere in the design or near/in the border, more common
between early 1840s and late 1870s, see Allen (1979) (GG, ED)
Bristol board
fine-quality cardboard, usually with a smooth surface suitable
for drawing and printing single sheets; originally made
in Bristol, England, it was a laminate of papers adhered
together; now a thin cardboard made on multi-cylinder papermachine (GG)
broadside
1. a sheet of paper printed only on one side, often a full
sheet or one cut in half
2. a newspaper of a large size
(GG, JC)
| Alternate term: |
broadsheet |
buckram
strong fabric of jute, cotton, or linen, filled and sized,
glazed and stiff; used since 1860 for book covers; single
or double warp (GG)
burnished edge
colored edge(s) of a book rubbed with wax and polished
with a burnisher (agate or bloodstone set in a handle) (GG, ED)
calender
to press between two or more cylinders under pressure (APPA)
calf
calfskin with a very smooth finish and
grainless surface, commonly used in 18th-c. England for “trade” or
semi-permanent bindings, while rest of Europe used paper
covers; many different names given to calfskin bindings
(GG, JC)
calf-finished lambskin
split sheepskin with a smooth finish
resembling calf (GG)
caliper mark
incised lines or tiny holes left behind
by the caliper, or compass, used by the finisher to mark
out position of
tooling and lettering (GG)
cameo binding
covers inserted
with a cameo, first seen in Italian bindings from 1500–1560;
later, a stamped or embossed image resembling a cameo
appears on the cover(s) (GG, ED)
| Alternate term: |
plaquette binding |
cancel, canceling
a page printed to correct an error and tipped onto a stub
left behind when the incorrect page was cut out (GG, ED, JC)
canvas
coarsely woven
linen or cotton cloth used to cover books; thicker
and more durable
than book-cloth but inferior to
buckram; late 18th c. to 1830, plain canvas covers used
on school books and on books sold by chapmen (but not considered
chapbooks); also appeared on the spines of late 19th c.
books of the Arts & Craft Movement with plain paper
sides, usually blue, brown, or gray (GG, JC)
carbon black
any of several types of black pigment
used in inks made by partial burning a variety of materials:
natural gas,
oil, wood, bones, and mixed with a drying oil (GS)
| Alternate terms: |
charcoal black |
|
ivory black |
| |
lamp black |
| |
vine black |
cardboard
laminated board either of individual sheets of paper and
an adhesive or made on a multi-cylinder papermachine (no
adhesive); early types of cardboard had burnished surfaces (GG)
cartouche
enclosed space for lettering, motifs, images, e.g., maps;
a scroll with rolled ends enclosing a title (GG, JC)
case
a mass-manufactured, off-the-book-constructed cover and
spine, which is adhered to the textblock by adhering the
super and/or tapes, then the first and last sheets of endpapers
as pastedowns to the inside of the covers; case consists
of two boards, a thinner strip of cardboard, thick paper,
or hollow for the spine, all which are adhered to a large
piece of book-cloth (or paper); extra margin of board at
head, fore-edge, and tail for the squares with enough margin
for turn-ins
cased book, cased-in book
bound book, laced-in book
(GG, ED, JC)
catchword
a word printed below the last line of the text, near the
fore-edge, on the recto page that denotes the next word
on the succeeding page; useful when collating gatherings (GG, ED, JC)
chalking
any situation when the vehicle in ink or colored paste
evaporates or deteriorates to the point that the pigment
is powdery and lighter in color than originally (GG)
| Alternate
term: |
powdering |
chamfered edge
usually 45° angle
cut or shape; in binding, the shape (usually through
the use of an
abrasive) given
to thick
boards sloping from the front to the back, usually stopping
just before reaching the back edge to leave a small section
of the original board intact; makes thick boards look thinner,
less clumsy and facilitates opening (GG)
| Alternate term: |
bevel edge |
chapbook
usually a cheap,
paper-covered booklet or pamphlet sold by chapmen or
hawkers, about
6 x 4 inches and 24 pages;
often decorated with woodcuts; in America, seen from 1725–1825
(GG, JC)
chased edge
gilded edge of a book decorated by the finisher with heated
finishing tools, called goffering tools, to produce a wavy
or crimped effect (GG)
chemical wood pulp
fibers for a good-quality paper made by debarking trees
and cutting them into uniform chips of wood, followed by
chemical processing in digesters at high temperatures and
under pressure; the resulting pulp, after bleaching, contains
very little or no lignin (APPA)
cheveril
a leather made from the skin of the guinea deer (ED)
| Alternate term: |
chevrotain |
chipboard
cheap paperboard made from recycled paper and other fibers;
of low density and relatively weak (APPA); thin, hard-surfaced
gray board (ED); laminates of pulp, no adhesive; often
used for cases (GG)
chromolithography
lithographic printing in many colors,
each having its own stone; 1837, Engelmann, France; appeared
in English books
in 1839 (GG)
| Alternate
term: |
color lithography
|
circuit edges
excess covering material, usually limp
vellum, leather, or paper, which turn in to protect edges
of the text (GG)
clamshell box
a hinged, three-part, protective container
for a book that folds into a tightly closed box (GG, JC)
| Alternate
terms: |
fall-down-back
|
|
solander
|
| |
solander box |
| See also: |
slipcase
|
clasps
brass or other metal pieces secured to
the outside covers, usually two at the fore-edge; used
to keep the book closed
so the parchment leaves (especially) did not cockle or
warp (GG, JC)
cloisonné
images made by
soldering one edge of metal strips onto a metal, usually
copper, sheet
forming outlines; the interiors
are filled with a powdered glass paste and fired into hard,
glasslike enamel; in binding, a style that resembles the
jewel-quality of cloisonné (GG, ODA, ED)
cloth boards
1. stiff cloth bindings with no boards (GG)
2. wooden boards with a thick metal strip that protrudes
slightly over one long edge placed into the groove in a
French joint in a case to set the joint during pressing
(ED)
3. a kind of binder’s board (ED)
| Alternate
term: |
pressing boards
|
cloth hinge
on inside of the joint, a piece of cloth
is attached to the board under the pastedown, is pushed
down into the
groove, and is then either sandwiched between the endpapers
and the first gather or adhered to the recto of the flyleaf;
an embellishment, especially for doublures (GG )
| Alternate
term: |
hinge
|
See
also:
|
joint
|
cloth-faced, cloth-lined
referring to a cheap cover material made
of paper covered on one or two sides with linen or cotton
(GG )
| Alternate
term: |
linen-faced
|
coated paper
text, illustration, and endpapers that
are coated on one or both sides with a mixture of pigment(s)
and a vehicle;
early 19th c., the endpapers were pastel in shade, while
between 1855 and 1885 darker colors were used, see Allen
(1998); if white, basic lead carbonate is used alone or
with other colors, gaseous pollutants or sulfide pigments
can change the white component to a salmon, gray, or black
color, causing discoloration sometimes mistaken for mold
damage (GG, GS)
Cobb’s
paper
thin, matte, self-colored paper for endpapers
and sides of half-bound books; 1796, James Cobb, English,
papermaker (GG )
| Alternate
terms: |
colored paper |
|
self-colored paper
|
| See
also: |
coated paper
|
colophon
found in early printed books until about
1570, and later in the private press movement at the end
of the 19th c.;
for the latter, a paragraph or page describing who made
the book and the materials used, e.g., paper, typeface,
endpapers, leather; often found at the end of the book
(GG, ED, JC)
colored edge
edge(s) of book tinted with a dyed
or pigmented ink; may be coated with thin layer of wax
and burnished; applied
with a brush or sprinkled on with textblock in a clamp
(GG)
| Alternate
term: |
stained edge
|
colored paper
paper that has been dyed in the beaten
or vat, thus colored through the sheet (RE)
compensation guards
narrow guards, located in the gutter,
that run the length of the page, which are sewn in in
order to compensate for
the bulk nearer the fore-edge of folded maps, charts, etc.,
so that the book lies flat (GG)
| Alternate terms: |
filling-in guards |
| |
stubs
|
conjugate leaves
1. two leaves of a book adhered together to form one leaf
2. the other half of a leaf as sewn in
a book, not necessarily the page opposite; for example,
the conjugate leaf of pages
1/2 in a quarto is pages 7/8 while pages 3/4 is conjugate
with pages 5/6
(GG, JC)
continuous guard
a piece of paper folded as an accordion
or concertina that goes behind each of the folds through
which the gatherings
are sewn; used to protect the back folds of materials such
as vellum from the adhesive applied to the back after sewing
(GG, ED )
Alternate
term: |
zigzag guard
|
copyright page
page usually on the verso of the title
page upon which the copyright information is printed:
date, copyright holder,
country of publication, other copyright notice and rights
information (GG)
cords
thick, multi-ply threads of hemp or flax
used as sewing supports for back of book; used either
as round cord or
unwound and used flat; in the former, the thinner sewing
thread is wrapped around the cord, while in the latter,
the thread goes across the cord; if kept round, the cords
show as bands on the spine of book, raised cords; France,
late 16th c. to mid-17th c. and England until 1710, recesses
sawn into the back for the cords, thus a flat-back produced,
recessed cords; sawn-in cord style was quicker to sew,
but when glue is applied, it seeped into gaps in the folds
and an inflexible back is created and to temper this, the
hollow-back was first used in France in 1772; in board
attachment, the cords (rounded or flattened) can be laced
through the boards from the outside of the board to the
inside; the ends are splayed out (slips) and with glue
or paste, hammered flat against the inside of the boards;
in 19th c. books, slips were sandwiched between two pieces
of board (split board construction), which were then adhered
together; or the slips were adhered to inside of covers
and pastedown applied, as in cased-in books (GG, ED)
corner
triangular pieces of leather, cloth,
or paper placed across each outside corner of the book
covers; depending on the
proportion of the size of the corners and the depth of
the spine covering toward the center of the cover, such
books are often referred to as half- (smaller) or three-quarter
(larger) bound (GG)
cottage binding
a style resembling
a 17th c. binding decoration, associated with Samuel
Mearne’s workshop,
which features small tooled designs in the shape of
a gabled roof (or broken
pediment) (GG, ED, JC)
countermark
in paper watermarking, the design, usually
a name, initials, device, and/or date, that often appears
on the left side
of a sheet opposite (counter) to a pictorial design appearing
on the right half (GG)
cover
the upper cover is the front and the
lower, the back of the usually covered board or limp material
used to protect
the book; upper and lower covers are preferable terms to
front and back as the latter could be confused with the
back of the back which refers to the folds of the sewn
gatherings (JC)
cover board
cover material made by pasting together
two pieces of cover paper (GG)
cover paper
strong, thick paper used as wrappers
for brochures and pamphlets; plain or embossed surfaces
(GG)
cover title
the title of the book stamped, lettered
or printed on the cover of the book; may be an abbreviation
of the title
as it appears on the title page (GG)
Alternate
term:
|
binder’s title
|
creaser
an iron finishing tool used to burnish straight and curved
lines, see Johnson
criblé
a pattern, design, or image made up of dots
| Alternate term: |
manière criblée |
See also:
|
pointillé
|
cropped, cropped edges
severe trimming of textblock, usually while being rebound;
cutting into the text
(GG, ED, JC)
| Alternate terms: |
bleeding edges
|
| |
cut down |
| |
cut into |
| |
ploughed |
| |
short |
| |
trimmed
|
|