Question: What does the term "whole binding" mean?
Answer: Whole binding. A binding with spine and sides entirely covered
with leather.
Ref. From the Glossary in Edith Diehl's Bookbinding. Its Background and
Technique.
Only the spine would be covered with leather in books "published in
boards."
Cheers,
Jerry Morris
Donald Farren wrote:
I read in an advertisement for Isaiah Thomas's "Folio pulpit and family
Bible with fifty elegant copperplates" of 1791, which ran in the
newspaper that Thomas published in Worcester, Mass., the Massachusetts
Spy, the following:
"N.B. Works of this kind are not fit for whole binding under several
months after they are printed as the plates and the letterpress are both
liable to injury by the hammer and press of the binder. This is the
reason of their being published in boards, in which state the work may
be read and handled without injury. Purchasers can have the work bound
afterwards, either in one volume or two as best suits their coveniency."
PROBLEM: What does the term "whole binding" mean?
QUESTION: Has anyone encountered elsewhere the term "whole binding" or a
distinction made between "whole binding" and "published in boards"? (I
have received the suggestion that "whole binding" means binding in one
volume, which may very well be the case. However, the syntax of Thomas's
paragraph clearly establishes an opposition between "whole binding" and
"published in boards".)
N.B. Divagations about the inadvisability of immediately binding up a
freshly printed book containing fifty copperplates and the alternative
of issuing the book in boards, however interesting and worthy that
topic, are irrelevant to my question, which focus narrowly on the
meaning of the term "whole binding".
Donald Farren
Moi's Books About Books http://www.tinyurl.com/hib7
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