Literary Reconstruction

I've begun working on an important collection of several 17th and 18th century poets, or at least their literary remains. Currently on the bench are two 1674 editions of George Herbert's "The Temple" and a 1720 2-volume quarto edition of the poetical works of John Milton. A partially disbound copy of "The Temple" was pulled, mended, resewn, bound, and tooled in the photos above. A second copy needing no text repair was rebound in dark calf, the last picture above. (Pictured lying on "Walton's Lives", in for a reattachment of its boards. The Milton volumes below need new spines, having been rebacked in weak sheepskin sometime last century, those weak joints finally splitting apart. The original headbands were gone, having been replaced with a thick cord tucked into the headcap, so they're being resewn in the photos posted here. The new headbands will be age-toned to match their respective edges (top edges are usually dirtier than bottom) and will go unnoticed (as they should) when the new leather has been worked on. A cloth inner joint was visible and machine-made pastedowns had just been applied over the originals, so those layers were removed all the way back to the original leather turnins. The original leather has been treated with a consolidant, all later materials eliminated, and labels saved in case they're worth reusing. (That'll be decided when new leather is in place and the final results can better be anticipated.) More pics as we progress!

Flowers Personified: A Leather Rebacking

The hand-colored title page and a closeup of new leather turn-ins.

Cloth joints oversewn and a picture of the detached spine The close-up shows new leather worked under old and new headcaps formed, prior to color touchup and blending..


Close-ups of the reattached spine, with new leather running from the reattached spine to the triple gold lines.

"Flowers Personified" is an unusually beautiful volume, handcolored throughout "with 52 female figures adorned with flower costumes." The textblock was in very good condition but, as is typical with books of this period (mid 19th century), there was virtually nothing holding the boards on beyond the thin covering leather and paper inner joints. As a result, both spine and boards were detached.

After cleaning the back of the textblock, linen joints were oversewn. This is a somewhat invasive procedure, but is at times invaluable for catching up loose sections front and back and for providing solid support across the joints. (The debate can rage on in the comments if you like.) To finish preparation of the textblock, the spine was relined with a new hollow.

The leather on the boards was lifted (you can see the cut right next to the three gold lines) and matching black morocco was worked around the spine and underneath the original sides. The original spine was cleaned from the backside (extra layers of lining material removed), headcap areas were thinned, and then it was laid back over the new spine. New leather was blended with the old and though the camera flash is merciless, the repairs are fairly invisible to the untrained eye. This type of rebacking is perhaps the most common "surgery" performed by book doctors, and similar techniques are used for clothbound books.

Rebacking a Clothbound book with Leather

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.