bindings

I am looking to learn more about bindings. Anyone have favorite books or resources to recommend?

My focus here is more on historical details, such as the kinds of bindings that became popular in various eras and the binders or binderies with notable reputations, rather than simply technical details about how bookbinding works.

For one somewhat arbitrary example, I know Bayntun-Riviere is an esteemed bindery. I have accumulated information like this mostly in an ad hoc manner, from browsing seller listings or from offhand comments in works focusing primarily on other topics, such as specific presses or printers. Consequently, I suspect my knowledge in this area is heavily skewed, at the very least toward the 20th century and US/UK bindings, and probably in other ways about which I am as yet unaware.

Any suggestions?

>1 abysswalker:

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but a couple of ideas:

Art Nouveau and Art Deco Bookbinding : French Masterpieces, 1880-1940, by Alastair Duncan
The Art of Publishers' Bookbindings, 1815-1915, by Ellen K. Morris
An Historical Sketch of bookbinding, by S. T. Prideaux - oh, look! there's a .pdf available! http://www.survivorlibrary.com/library/an_historical_sketch_of_bookbinding_1893....

To the excellent list >2 lilithcat: gave above (beat me to the punch on the French binding book), I would suggest you add Bookbinding: Its Background and Technique, by Edith Diehl. Howard Nixon wrote quite a few on bookbindings. There are many antiquarian booksellers who specialize in book about books besides the one in the link above, such as The Veatchs. Happy hunting!

Edit:
If you are interested in the fascinating subject of decorated American trade bindings (and you might want to take a look), then I would start with Richard Minsky's Art of American Book Covers, 1875-1930 and go from there.

You may find this inspirational:-
https://www.flickr.com/photos/warwick_carter/49602678856/in/photolist-2izdGhY-E8...

Oak Knoll published an interesting book on bindings - Beautiful Bookbindings: A Thousand Years of the Bookbinder's Art

>1 abysswalker:

Haven't read this, but I came across this as well:

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30516726056&searchurl=bi%3...

There are also a couple of history-bibliographies dedicated to the more famed privates presses like Limited Editions Club or Fanfrolico Press, etc.

Searching past auction records on places like liveauctioneers.com is also a great way to get historical and contextual information for all sorts of obscure books and bindings. Heritage Auctions, for example, offers super detailed assessments compiled by various in-house or third party experts and sources, far more detailed than you'll find with many of the more fly-by-night auction houses.

>5 kdweber: oh that looks lovely.

Thanks everyone for all the recommendations.

The bookseller Phillip J. Pirages has made a number of videos about historic book bindings:

https://www.pirages.com/videos.php

The Chelsea Bindery has a nice video that shows the different steps involved in binding a book:

https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/chelsea-bindery

>5 kdweber: Good recommendation. Oak Knoll also has quite a number of titles available on bookbinding overall. Their specialty is books about books. Check out their website: https://www.oakknoll.com/

Joseph W. Zaehnsdorf, one of the great 19th century binders, published a book on binding. The text is available for free on gutenberg.org:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51213/51213-h/51213-h.htm