Earlier this week, our Muniments Archivist, Rachel Hart, was browsing our early print collections for images of Easter for another publication. You can imagine my… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 41: gorgeous early 16th century French clasps
This week’s binding feature is one of four incunabula held in the George Hay Forbes Collection. This week, as I was wrapping up cataloguing of… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 40: a stunning 16th century pigskin and medieval manuscript half binding
We return this week back to the work of book designer John Leighton (featured in week 33). I don’t normally like to cover the same… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 39: the pinnacle of a 19th century book designer
This week’s binding posts features one of the classic hallmarks of 18th century Scottish bookbinding: the wheel pattern. The wheel pattern was the Scottish answer… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 38: an 18th century Scottish Wheel Binding
This week’s binding highlight is a small, precious thing found by our reading room staff whilst doing shelf-checking in the Reserve Collection. It is the… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 37: a 19th century hand-painted binding
This week’s binding feature is indeed a bit of a Frankenstein. I came across this item while working through the large folio incunabula shelves and… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 36: a 16th century Frankenstein-esque binding
Embroidered bindings are no stranger to this binding thread, however, this week’s item has a very interesting connection to one of the most artistically influential… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 35: a 20th century embroidered binding, possibly by May Morris
This week’s binding post is a bit of a mystery and is a perfect candidate for some further research. Recently recatalogued incunabula TypFP.A95GG is the… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 34: possibly the earliest dated blind panel-stamp extant
Another 19th century beauty makes it to the bindings list this week: the 1863 photo-illustrated edition of Sir Walter Scott’s The lady of the lake.… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 33: a 19th century gem designed by John Leighton
This week’s fantastic binding was first brought to my attention by our reading room staff when they posted some photographs of it on our Facebook… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 32: A Gothic heavy-weight
Our collections, like most historic collections, are littered with hundreds of armorial stamped bindings, ranging from the 16th to 19th century. These bindings are wonderful… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 31: a gift from the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot
This week’s binding post caught my eye as I was reshelving some items. As you can see in the picture above, this book stands out… Read More »52 Weeks of Fantastic Bindings, Week 30: 16th century Hebrew text bound in a leaf of a 12th or 13th century manuscript