Fine Bookbinding in the Twentieth Century

David & Charles, Newton Abbot, first edition, 1984. Cloth, 4to, 28 cm,. 151 pp, 33 colour and 82 black-and-white ills. From the blurb: "In the second half of this century, fine bookbinding has undergone an exciting renaissance. The growing number of highly skilled designer-bookbinders are raising standards to new peaks. Their work is sought out, admired and collected for its beauty and artistic significance. This is the first book to look at this century's leading binders, their work and their varied approaches to it - often described in their own words. It includes a chapter on collecting bindings. Lavishly illustrated with a magnificent selection of photographs, in colour and monotone, it shows the very varied approaches of the different personalities, their superb craftsmanship and beautiful, stimulating, sometimes controversial, designs. The 'Names to Note' section is an invaluable reference source, in a field not so far documented. From T. J. Cobden-Sanderson or Douglas Cockerell in the early 1900s, to Edgar Mansfield in the 1950s and to Philip Smith, Lage Eric Carlsen, Donald Glaister or Santiago Brugalla today, is a long haul. Today's men and women in the front rank in Europe and the USA are reaching for new dimensions. Many of them have broken with tradition by trying to integrate the binding with the book: they strive to capture the author's message and interpret it in visual form. Meanwhile Ivor Robinson, one of the world's most highly regarded binders, insists that a binding should stand as work of visual creativity in its own right. There is a new sense of freedom in the way leather is used and in the use of less conventional materials - metal, wood, plastics, paints. Having looked at Philip Smith's magnificent creation for Hamlet or his sculptured leather hand that holds a small Robert Louis Stevenson book, Faith Shannon's delightful binding for Alice Through the Looking Glass, James Brockman's 'electronic' binding, Trevor Jones's humorous work for Finnegans Wake, Timothy Ely's 'total books', Dee Odell-Foster's use of perspex boards and metals, Angela James's embroidered designs, and countless others shown here, the reader is left hungry for more. Some of these bindings are works of art that will live; all are immensely interesting to anyone concerned with books, with craftsmanship, with art collecting of any kind. Elegant bookplate on front pastedown endpaper, Very Good in Very Good dustwrapper.