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Book Reviews Philip Smith, New Directions in Bookbinding Book reviews Philip Smith, New directionsin bookbinding.London, Studio Vista, Cassell & Collier Mac- Millan Publishers Ltd./New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1974, 4°, 208 pp., 210 illus., £12.50. Contemporary bookbinding suffers greatly from a basic misunderstanding of its purpose and significance: whereas most of us will agree that present-day technology has almost totally eliminated the role of the hand-bookbinder in serving the general reader (the restorer being an exception), there are few prepared to accept that the craft of book- binding has great potentialities as a unique variety of applied art. The present book, by a talented British designer-bookbinder, documents the bookbinding art's struggle for recognition and survival. It is a vehement appeal, substantiated by presentation of his own creative work. At the same time, however, it is also intended to be a manual of design and execution in high-quality binding. The material is squeezed into twenty- three chapters on subjects ranging from 'historical notes', 'a framework for thinking', or 'design for use', through sophisticated ways of applying leather for building up images, to practical matters like the properties of adhesives and the use of various mechanical aids. A limited number of contributions are the work of British and con- tinental colleagues. There are also five appendices on technical matters (including one on the manufacture of leather); an index and a bibliography complete the book, which iss profusely illustrated. All this seems to be too abundant for two hundred pages: the book is overloaded with information and provocative thoughts; it is intriguing, but not free from controversial items and ambiguities. One has the feeling that the author himself has been caught on the horns of the `craft versus art' dilemma: being both an imaginative artist and a devoted craftsman, he is unable to refrain from trying to treat both aspects in depth, and this has inevitably resulted in shortcomings and lacunae. This last point seems to apply to the important issue of the artistic approach and the relationship of a given design to the literary content and the spirit of a book. Whereas the author repeatedly emphasizes this, even providing a chart representing a 'notational analysis of operational factors in bookbinding design', the brevity of the historical back- ground given leads the reader to suppose that all this is entirely new (Just as the title would indicate). The fact is, however, that efforts directed towards achieving this aim go back at least as far as the early twenties, when Pierre Legrain in France not only postulated the requirement that a binding should reflect the content of a book, but also approached its design along the lines of the prevailing artistic trends of his time, notably abstract art. It was from his work that the truly new directions in bookbinding arose, and great French designers such as Paul Bonet and Rose Adler followed in his footsteps by exploring innumerable new ways of designing and executing fine bindings. Among these new methods we find the decorative use of extremely thin irregular leather shavings by, for instance, Claude Stahly or Germaine de Coster and Helene Dumas ('mosaïques ajourees'), long before Philip Smith applied the very similar technique of 'feathered onlays'. This does not necessarily imply any criticism, since means of artistic expression are not commonly the subjects of patents. Remarkably enough, though, the author did apply for patent rights on a further development of this technique which he called 'maril' (derived from Simaril, a name in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and also standing for MARbled Inlaid Leather: shavings from a random clump of leather scrap, bound with adhesive). In his own designs-illustrated lavishly and partly in colour-the 201 author makes use of the 'feathered onlay' and 'maril' techniques, almost to the exclusion of all others, to create a colourful symbolic and often even apocalyptic imagery, exten- ding over both covers. The impression is of a painting in leather all over the book, which does, indeed, require to be seen from all sides: and the invention of the 'book-wall ', in which a number of volumes of integrated designs are assembled in a transparent case, is the author's appropriate solution. New Directions also contains a number of illustrations of bindings by more than a dozen well-known bookbinders from various countries. The technical sections of the book give clear evidence of the author's ingenuity and manual dexterity. In a large number of very clear drawings he illustrates in detail his preferred procedures and technical innovations, the latter including a single-post sewing frame and a paring machine for leather (a motor-driven spokeshave). Matters of widely varying degrees of sophistication are treated with equal seriousness: a dozen compli- cated endpaper constructions are given, but also the advice to use a rosewood band-stick to beat down every third section during sewing, and instructions on how to apply drip- free paste using a drip-free brush. Many of the author's technological solutions are un- doubtedly ingenious, but at the same time they are often rather complicated and not al- ways necessary: it requires some faith to use both tapes and recessed cords for sewing a single book, or to use half a dozen sheets of different materials in the construction of a cover - not everything that can be done is worth doing. Nevertheless, the book abounds in useful and handy suggestions which will be greatly appreciated by fellow craftsmen and which compensate for other items which are virtually lacking, such as the merely symbolic coverage of the techniques of gold-tooling (seldom used by the author) or the concise but wise instruction that for deckle-edge gilding it is best to send the work to a competent edge-gilder. A review such as this cannot but be as ambivalent as the book itself. New Directions in Bookbinding isan important book and an interesting document, a must for everyone who cares about the fate of the art of producing beautiful books. This is in spite of the fact that it does not fulfil the promise of its title: rather than giving complete coverage of the present-day bookbinding scene or an entirely new approach to bookbinding, it is an original and individualistic testimony by a highly gifted designer-bookbinder. It may be recommended to the advanced bookbinder who is already aware that a bone folder is just as good as a rosewood stick; the novice in the field should buy it but read it later. <L.> J. A. SZIRMAI Jahrbuch der Auktionspreisefür Bücher, Handschriften und Autografen. Ergebnisseder Auktionen in Deutschland, Holland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Band XXIV. 1973. Mit einem Anhang Spezialgebiete der Antiquariate. Hamburg, Dr. Ernst Hauswedell & Co., 1975, 4', xvi, 488 pp., DM 120,-. The arrears which this survey of auction results had accumulated arc slowly but surely being made up, and the publisher hopes soon to have finished vol. XXV (1974). In contrast to what is promised in the foreword and on the title-page, the book does not include the results of any sales held in Austria. What we do have, however, is results from 18 German auctions (by 9 different firms), I in Holland (4 firms), and one each from Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark. Looking through this twenty-fourth volume one again realizes how relative auction .
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