Invisible Ink
I’ll confess as a kid I loved espionage: clandestine conversations, dark alley meetings, secret passageways. If it involved a high-level adventure… with a low-level of forgery… with maybe a secret handshake, I was in; and truth be told I still might be. Growing up pre-mobile phones and computers, note passing
Ink In Their Blood: Print Apprentices Make Good
“James Franklin, printer, in Queen’s Street, wants a likely lad for an apprentice.”[1] The life of a printer’s apprentice or “devil” was no picnic. It usually involved long hours of arduous labor for little or no pay with only small hope of advancement. Apprenticeship – until at least the middle
Book news
As Scotland heads to the polls this week to vote on independence from the United Kingdom, an antiquarian bookseller has drawn attention to the 18th century debate regarding the union of Scotland and England: expressed here in a book of poetry in support of the union. Equally of interest is
This book bound in human skin…
This book bound in human skin…isn’t human skin after all. Our fascination with the macabre practice of anthropodermic bibliopegy, or human skin bookbinding, isn’t a new one. This inscription led readers astray for many years before scientific testing of the leather proved the note to be false.
Miniature Sherlock Holmes
For your Friday enjoyment: miniature books, Sherlock Holmes and a Queen’s Doll House.
Bookbinder of the Month | Rose Adler
This week’s post is a bit last minute, though an important subject nonetheless! Rather than try to write my own biography of Rose Adler, an extremely talented and inspiring Art Deco Bookbinder, I have posted below a detailed and well-written biography from the Willy Huybrechts archive. You can read the
Patron Saints of Bookbinding
Bookbinding is not for the timid of hand or heart. courtesy of Dan Goldberg Risk of stab by needle, loss of fingers by guillotine: these are the few perils that bookbinders face every day in their field of work. There is even one recorded case of death by beating books. courtesy of
The American Bookbinders Museum: A Brief History of the Museum, Library, and Archive
Founder Tim James has been collecting bookbinding material for twenty years, but the initial hunt wasn’t always for a museum. He began the collection with the thought that upon retiring he could move up to the Gold Country, open a 19th century bookbindery, and become the town curmudgeon. Fortunately for