Though our usual goal in restoration is to keep the book as original as possible, we'll occasionally take liberties when doing so will make for a better book. In this case, the original spine was missing, and any new cloth spine would, despite careful coloring and aging, have had a difficult time matching perfectly. So, we opted for a complete contrast, choosing a dark leather and tooling in a style reminiscent of the original covers. The boards were split and the leather was tucked between them without disturbing the inner paper joints.
