for all interested in bookbinding, bookarts, book conservation, bookmaking. ABN 97 853 169 281 Ahhhh. The Lockdown version 4,5,6. What to do? Embark on those projects that don't do well in fits and starts but need dedicated time. Let me see what I will choose.
Reliable Poultry Journal 38 volumes 1894 to 1931. Volumes 2-11 are ok just need cleaning, Volumes 31-38 need new hinge reinforcement. All the rest need rebinding.
The good the bad and the ugly.
Book Review The Wormsley Library. The Maurice Betteridge collection.
I have written a few times about discoveries in the bindery, finding historically important items hidden in books that are being rebound or in bindings or tools. Just last week I saw a piece about the State Library Bindery, and small photo of a reused piece of manuscript in the spine of a book.
I have been reading this book about the Wormsley Library. It took me a while to get to it. It’s the Library of Sir Paul Getty and knowing a little of the history of his father, I didn’t want to read it. But after his father passed, I think the children did use some of the wealth for public good so I started to read it. It’s a selected list of bindings used in an exhibition, and featured as much on the bindings as the works content.
What a surprise then to see item 1 of the exhibition.
The Earliest English Manuscript? I would have added surviving manuscript but it’s a delight . It is from Historica Ecclesiasticus (the History of the Church) written by Eusebius Pamphili. A work I am familiar with in the English translation, and I can see a modern copy on the shelf in front of my desk. From the mid seventh century ( 1640-1650) and is most of leaf 2 and 9 of the first 10 leaf section of the Eusebius, damaged by trimming which removed part of the text. It was found as a wrapper binding of a sixteen century work, discovered in 1984. Can you imagine the joy of finding such a piece while setting about cleaning up the other minor manuscript.
