The artistic and cultural setting for book designs

The impulses that resulted in book cover designs for edition bindings¹ were many and varied. Technical developments provided the means for artists to attempt wide experimentation with design. The production of starched, filled and dyed cloth from the mid 1820s permitted its embossing or its blocking². In the 1830s, ribbon embossing of cloth imparted patterns to it. This was done by the passing of cloth through heated rollers, which had engraved patterns cut into them.³ The development of the arming press by the early 1830s permitted the use of pre-cut heated brass blocks for blocking onto cloth, with or without the use of gold.⁴ The necessity was obvious of replicating the embossing or the blocking of a design before the cloth and boards were attached to the text block. Once this step was made, mass production of designs blocked onto cloth covers became feasible.

Contrast in design could also be attempted through the use of ‘in relievo’ work and also with the use of coloured onlays. Patterns could be made by the embossing of the blockwork onto the cloth, leaving portions of it raised. By the 1850s, ‘in relievo’ work had reached a high level of sophistication, with its extensive employment for bindings both cheap and expensive, applied to both covers and to spines. Onlays and inlays were also extensively used at this time, most usually to fit with design elements such as rectangles, circles, diamonds or ovals. These technical developments coincided with the movement to improve the quality of design applied to the manufacturing arts. Henry Cole provided book cover designs in the 1840s, which assisted the process of applying designs drawn from previous ages to book covers.⁵

It was the exhibition movement of the 1840s, culminating in the Great Exhibition of 1851, which gave great impetus to the development of book cover design for edition bindings. It was possible for an artist such as John Leighton, among many others, to create book designs for the Exhibition itself.⁶ The enormous popularity of the Great Exhibition, visited by over six million people, helped create the market for books about it, which publishers eagerly filled. Moreover, the market for books of all subjects grew significantly in the 1850s.⁷ Editions of many thousands of copies were made and bound for all kinds of subjects, many with cover designs created ab initio. Those engaged in this work did not consider themselves to be cover designers per se. Rather, they thought of themselves as artists, executing but one part of the whole. Frequently, artists who provided the illustrations for the engravings, or the lithographs, of a book also drew designs for engravers to create brass dies for blocking onto the covers.

Where ascertained in publishers’ catalogues bound at the end of volumes, a common price listed is between 2s. 6d. and 3s. 6d. The range 2s. 1d. to 3s. 6d. accounts for a fifth (or just less) of books prices for titles listed in trade journals of the period.⁸ For this price range, cloth over boards was the preferred covering medium. An elaborate spine design and an upper cover vignette would be made with new dies, and blocked in gold, with the lower cover being blocked in blind only. The borders and the corners would be frequently blocked using fillets and small decorative tools, that were re-used. The virtuosity of the artwork provided ranged from ordinary, derivative work, to the highly original. Books priced at 10s. 6d. or at one guinea commanded artwork of a far more elaborate nature. Several designs by John Leighton (Shakespeare’s Household Words, The Bridal Souvenir), some by John Sliegh, and by William Harry Rogers, Albert Warren and many unsigned designs attest to this.

Some artists were more interested in exploring the use of other materials for bindings. Leather, wood, and papier mâché were all employed in a variety of ways. Owen Jones experimented with compressed wood for The Preacher, probably adopting a technique originally created in the 1820s.⁹ Henry Noel Humphreys worked with papier mâché designs, which complemented the texts over which he had also exerted a degree of artistic control. Published by Longman from the mid–1840s, they form a distinct, but short-lived, corpus, proving the potential of papier mâché for mass production.¹⁰ Humphreys also experimented with designs in leather, with coloured onlays.¹¹

The influence of Gothic Revival on book cover design of this period was obvious. Pugin’s great advocacy of this led him into designing book covers amongst the myriad of objects he created in this style.¹² The cover design work of William Harry Rogers and of Henry Noel Humphreys shows strong Gothic influences. However, the designs of all previous ages were considered for a cover design appropriate to the subject matter of a book, if suitable parallels could be simply made. John Leighton had published in 1852–53 Suggestions, in Design. Including original compositions in all styles … for the use of artists and art-workmen. The forty-seven plates provided ample scope for the re-deployment of ornament from previous eras to manufactured goods, including books. The work predates Owen Jones’ Grammar of Ornament by four years. However, the one hundred and twelve richly chromolithographed plates by Day and Son for the Grammar … provided the stimulus of colour, and Jones’ work became enormously popular.

Brief biographies of leading artists

The artists who were employed in book production were many. For those where identification has been possible, details are given below.

Charles Henry Bennett (1829-1867) was a prolific book illustrator in his short lifetime.¹³ His work is frequently brilliant, showing high levels of originality. His illustrations for children’s books provided ample scope for his inventiveness. He also could be strongly satirical: his illustrations for Character Sketches are a witty, yet profoundly perceptive satire on Darwin’s Origin of Species.¹⁴ In several instances, engravers copied his illustrations within the book directly onto brass for cover blocking. Bennett’s monogram of joined ‘CHB’ is distinctive, and on occasion is cut onto book cover blocks. This is so for The nine lives of a cat, and Mr. Wind and Madam Rain.¹⁵ His monogram on the spine of Quarles’s Emblems is used to great effect in combination with that of William Harry Rogers.¹⁶

Walter Crane (1845–1915) has fame as a painter, illustrator, designer, writer and teacher.¹⁷ He was apprenticed to William James Linton in 1859, and in the next three years learnt the technique of draughtmanship on wood blocks. An early example of Crane’s work is his drawings for John Wise’s The New Forest, drawings which were engraved by Linton. In the same year, Crane also provided fourteen plates for Caroline Hadley’s Stories of Old …¹⁸ Both these works were published by Smith Elder, and have cover designs provided by John Leighton. King Luckieboy’s Picture Book is listed as a cover design to show that Crane’s distinctive work was gaining ground with publishers when he was still quite young.¹⁹

Richard Doyle (1824–1883) Was well known as book illustrator. He was the uncle of Arthur Conan Doyle. He joined the staff of Punch in 1843, and his design for the magazine was retained for over one hundred years.²⁰ The only two cover designs included are those derived from his illustrations within the book. These are for The Scouring of The White Horse²¹ and The adventures of a watch.²² His use of the distortion of line transfers well to the covers of these two books.

Robert Dudley (active 1858–1891) worked in Matthew Digby Wyatt’s office. He was Superintendent of the restorations and of the monuments and principal draughtsman, under Wyatt, of the Mediaeval and Renaissance Courts of the Sydenham Crystal Palace, 1854. He designed for Goodall & Son, and accompanied The Great Eastern on its cable laying expedition on the Atlantic Ocean in 1866.²³ The design for The Atlantic Telegraph, displaying the core of the telegraph cable as an onlay on the centre of the upper cover, is likely to be a design of Dudley’s.²⁴ He provided illustrations for a number of books.²⁵ He designed a set of Christmas cards in 1887, and wrote the story of King Fo, the Lord of Misrule. A twelfth night story in 1884.²⁶ His work shows mainly vignettes, several for elaborate designs, such as Poet’s Wit and Humour.²⁷ Like Leighton, he used pictorial effects in his designs, not relying on figurative work alone.

Owen Jones (1809–1874) was more consciously involved with the minutiae of book production for a long period, from the early 1840s to the late 1860s. He experimented with techniques, using a design impressed upon wood for The Preacher, published in 1849.²⁸ The renown of The Grammar of Ornament should not obscure his other achievements in chromolithography also published by Day And Son, such as Paradise and the Peri, One Thousand and One Initial Letters and The History of Joseph and his Brethren.²⁹ Jones provided cover designs to accompany his artwork for the text. His cover design for Winged Thoughts is an excellent piece of blocking on leather – elegant, unified and understated.³⁰

John Leighton’s (1822–1912) originality was only exceeded by his proficiency.³¹ Dying on his ninetieth birthday in 1912, his known cover designs span the period 1845–1902. He was possessed of a powerful imagination, which was applied time and again to create designs for vignettes and for spine designs, with deft touches and with humour, often in keeping with a book’s subject. Leighton was capable of providing work on a small or on a large scale. His designs for Blackie’s Literary and Commercial Almanack, made between 1853 and 1872, were for a publication not more than 55 mm wide and 85 mm high.³² By contrast, Leighton’s design for The life of Man is on a book measuring 225 mm wide and 288 mm high.³³ This size permitted a complex and intricate design. Leighton provided humour in a number of vignettes or full cover designs.³⁴ He also had a strong eye for detailing groups of objects within a small space, especially so for spine designs³⁵ All of this is ample evidence of his graphic skill, as well as his calligraphic gifts in the designs of novel lettering, albeit at one remove in the production process. Fortunately, drawings of Leighton’s survive, which show amply his abilities in original form.³⁶ Leighton’s work for William Mackenzie in the 1870s and 1880s demonstrates his artistic staying power, even though many of the designs were done in a similar manner, within the publisher’s formula for the size of the book.³⁷

Leighton possessed considerable knowledge of heraldry; coats of arms feature on many of his designs. His most single minded heraldic design is for Hodgkin’s Monograms.³⁸ His Scottish ancestry possibly provided impetus to heraldic designs for the covers of Walter Scott’s Marmion and Lay of the Last Minstrel.³⁹ His link by kinship to the bookbinding firm of Leighton Son & Hodge should not be underestimated in providing experience in how to maximise design elements within the constraints of executing the designs on cloth in this period.⁴⁰ Leighton signed his designs equally with his monogram, the crossed ‘L’ and ‘J’, or with these initials separately.

William Harry Rogers (1825–1874) was a contemporary of Leighton.⁴¹ The eldest son of William Gibbs Rogers, a renowned wood carver, he began drawing artwork for book covers in his twenties. His illustrations for page borders, head and tail-pieces, are to be found in many books. He is notable for intricate cover design work, often showing elaboration of title letters, or dense foliage. Three of his most elaborate overall designs for covers are those for Spiritual Conceits and for Tupper’s Proverbial philosophy, and, with Charles Henry Bennett, Quarles’ Emblems. One of his most delightful is the design blocked on Rimmel’s Book of perfumes, which displays the coat of arms of the parfumiers.

He invariably used his full initials WHR as a monogram. He is also distinctive for the way he placed his monogram in his designs, sometimes small or very small, and, at other times, inserting it within a design, seemingly inviting the viewer to hunt for it. Unlike Leighton, his imaginative powers did not extend much into the pictorial, as the delineation of human or of animal forms scarcely occurs on his cover designs. His death in 1874 prevented any further development of his draughtsmanship. However, he paid a strong attention to the detail of ornament, a mastery of the forms of its proportions, seeming to delight in providing intricacy and denseness.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) found fame within the Pre-Raphaelites. His work illustrating books formed only a small part of his artistic endeavour, creating but ten significant illustrations in four books published between 1855 and 1866.⁴² The involvement of Rossetti in the designs of a number of books in the 1860s exerted a real influence in favour of simplicity of line for book cover design.⁴³ Rossetti provided the design for Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market and other poems, which was first published in 1862, at a price of five shillings. The second edition was issued in 1865, and as for the 1862 edition, has bright blue ungrainedi cloth, with the use of broad fillets intersecting horizontally and vertically, continuing across the spine.⁴⁴ The blocking of three small circles at the intersections of the fillets focuses the eye at these points, providing a simple symmetry. The identical design was used over thirty years later, on a copy of Christina Rossetti’s Poems, 1896, bound in green ungrained cloth.⁴⁵ This design for Goblin Market introduced a simplicity of line out of step with many of the showy, densely ornamented designs of the 1850s and 1860s, and was much copied.

In 1865, Macmillan also issued William Michael Rossetti’s translation of Dante’s Inferno.⁴⁶ Dante Gabriel Rossetti provided the design for Burn to bind, which was done by mid-February 1865. D. G. Rossetti made use of fillets and circles on the upper cover, with the symbolism of stars, flames, alphas and omegas.⁴⁷ It seems likely that an adaptation of these designs was made by D.G. Rossetti for W. M. Rossetti’s  Spectator essays, re-published by Macmillan in 1867 under the title Fine art chiefly contemporary, at a price of ten shillings and sixpence. Burn bound this work in orange ungrained cloth, with a design of a single fillet on the borders of the upper cover, and three pendant-balls, which show the Macmillan monogram.⁴⁸ Darley called the work done by Burn in the 1860s: ‘The new Macmillan syle of simplicity…’⁴⁹

John Sliegh (active 1841–1872) was clearly a gifted artist. He was one of the twenty artists employed on copying exhibits at the Hyde Park Great Exhibition for Digby Wyatt’s The industrial arts of the nineteenth century. His cover designs show a good sense of proportion of design in relation to the size of the covers. Sliegh used the Gothic style, particularly for Evangeline and Gertrude of Wyoming, with elaborate use of fanciful letters.⁵⁰

William Robert Tymms (active 1859–1868) was an accomplished artist and engraver. He provided the chromolithographic work for J. B. Waring’s Masterpieces of the Industrial Art & sculpture at the International Exhibition, 1862;⁵¹ and also for J. O. Westwood’s Facsimiles of the Miniatures & Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon & Irish Manuscripts, 1868.⁵² His cover designs are on two works: The Indian Fables⁵³ and Tennyson’s The May Queen.⁵⁴

Albert Henry Warren (1830–1911) was the eldest son of Henry Warren (1794–1879), President of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colour. He was articled to Owen Jones and worked with him on the construction and decoration of the 1851 and 1862 Exhibitions. He assisted Jones with the illustration of The Grammar of Ornament and The Alhambra.⁵⁵ He made the drawings for St. James’s Hall, Piccadilly, assisted his father in painting panoramas of the Nile and the Holy Land, and helped his uncle John Martin with the designs for the Thames Embankment. He was Professor of Landscape at Queen’s College, London, and gave lessons in illuminating and floral painting to Princess Alice and Princess Helena. His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere in London between 1860–1870. He was a volunteer in the Artists’ Corps (20th Middlesex). He received grants from the Royal Bounty Fund in 1893, 1896, and 1900.⁵⁶

Pantazzi refers to Warren using his monogram, with the capital ‘A’ within the capital ‘W’, and also to the use of separate initials ‘A W’.⁵⁷ Independent evidence has not been found for the separately blocked letters ‘A W’ being designs by Warren, so they are grouped together just before the Warren entries. The twenty one designs listed show Warren’s artistic abilities well adapted to the medium of design on covers, with designs from the expensive to the simple.

Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820–1877) is a national figure of the period, often known for his work as an architect. As Secretary to the Executive Committee of the Commissioners of the Great Exhibition, he was also the Superintendent Architect for the Crystal Palace. He collaborated with Brunel on the design for Paddington Station, 1851–54⁵⁸ He carried out significant work for the Sydenham re-build of the Crystal Palace, being appointed Superintendent of the Fine Arts Department, collaborating with Owen Jones in the erection of the Fine Arts Courts, and co-writing with J. B. Waring two of the Crystal Palace Official Publications, The Byzantine Court and The Italian Court. As Surveyor to The India Office, he worked in partnership with George Gilbert Scott on the building of the Foreign Office, 1861–68, designing and building the interior of the India Office.⁵⁹ He designed a reconstruction of Addenbrooke’s Hospital in 1866, mainly of the facade, which stands today.⁶⁰

His involvement with book production certainly dates from his supervision of the production of The industrial arts of the nineteenth century …⁶¹ Digby Wyatt also assisted Owen Jones with the production of The Grammar of Ornament, and, with William Robert Tymms, produced The art of illuminating in 1860. It is perhaps no surprise that Digby Wyatt ventured into book cover design. The Campaign in the Crimea was a topical work, for which he produced an elaborate design, featuring the battle names of the campaign on the upper cover, together with corner medallions.⁶² The design for Curry and Rice reflects the Indian army scene, and perhaps came about through his involvement with the India Office and through his previous work for the lithographic company of Day & Son.⁶³ For each design, Digby Wyatt’s name is clearly to be seen on the covers.

Summary

Up to the early 1800s, books were usually sold without bindings, often in paper covers. They were then bound to the purchaser’s wishes. Improved technical methods made mass production techniques possible, at the same time as a large middle class developed, with the money to purchase more books. The rapid development of the railways in the 1840s and 1850s also meant the national distribution of books for sale on a greater scale than before. To market and sell increasing numbers of books, publishers needed attractive cover and spine designs, using standardised materials, such as cloth or paper, together with new designs, or mixtures of existing ones. Publishers and bookbinders were quick to expand the use of cloth for board coverings, to ensure that the cloth and boards were assembled separately from other steps in the bookbinding production, and to develop the decoration that could be blocked onto the cloth. Mass produced covers reduced the costs previously associated with the working of leather around each individual book. The production of books in the period 1840–1880 permitted ‘high’ investment either in cover designs with much individual artistic involvement, or at the other end, a ‘low’ investment, with far less complexity in designs. Many of the designs fully complement either the text alone or the text and its illustrations. In some instances, the cover design unquestionably exceeds the quality of what lies within.

Technical developments in book cover decoration throughout this period created a new artistic medium, and designs were produced in tens of thousands to embellish covers. In this specialised field, the work of the artists on cover designs in this period is an endless source of fascination. There is no doubt that many of the artists knew each other, collaborating as they did on numbers of high quality expensive works, such as those published by Day & Son in the 1850s and 1860s. With hindsight, we can see that Leighton’s work dominates the field. There is little evidence to show that he was seen in this light by his contemporaries. Today, one can also see how influential D. G. Rossetti’s designs for book covers were, introducing design concepts entirely novel for the time. The particular abilities of Charles Bennett, Walter Crane, Henry Noel Humphreys and Owen Jones were evident in their book illustration work. Owen Jones created innovative and striking book cover designs. Humphreys is well known for his inventive approach to book designs, and his experimentation with papier Mâché as a material for book covers. William Harry Rogers developed his own form: often dense and intricate designs where his mastery of line is readily apparent.

The fashion for Gothic revival in the 1840s and 1850s found full expression in book cover designs. Church arches, niches, imitation clasps, chivalric figures in armour, heraldic devices, together with the symbolic foliage of the Bible – all found their way onto book covers. Oriental, Renaissance and Jacobean motifs were also popular. The abiding vein of delight that the British took in fantasy, comedy and satire was also much in evidence, particularly in the work of Leighton and of Bennett, and often exercised for the designs of children’s books.

This period was marked by a prolific output and great achievement in popularising design concepts on book covers. There was undoubtedly cover design work to be shared amongst many, with numerous fine designs awaiting attribution. The variety of design was enormous, the virtuosity on some occasions outstanding, and on other book covers the designs were of mediocre standard and repetitive. The desire by publishers to offer book buyers something special resulted in the creation of books with cover designs that could be visually hugely impressive. The best of this great range in quality and of inventiveness deserves much wider recognition.

    ¹  Edition bindings is the term for the binding of mass produced books, with texts frequently being reprinted from metal copies made from the original hand-set type.

    ²  For a discussion of the development and early use of book-cloth, see Tomlinson, William and Masters, Richard. Bookcloth, 1823–1980. Stockport, D. Tomlinson, 1996. pp. 6–9.

    ³  Bookcloth, 1823–1980, p.116.; see also G. Dodd. Days at the factories. London, Charles Knight, 1844. pp. 380–81. A cloth embossing machine is illustrated on p.381.

    ⁴  There is a description of how the blocking work was done by the 1850s in Tomlinson, Charles (Editor). Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts. 1854, p. 159, which illustrates the gold-blocking press.

    ⁵  Avery-Quash, Susannah. Henry Cole and the Society of Arts …RSA History Study Group, 1998/99, p.3.

    ⁶  For example, see Leighton’s designs in plate 96 in: Matthew Digby Wyatt. The industrial arts of the nineteenth century. A series of illustrations of the choicest specimens produced by every nation at the Great Exhibition of works of industry, 1851. Dedicated, by permission, to his Royal Highness the Prince Albert. London, Day & Sons, lithographers to the Queen, 1851. 2 vols. 158 plates, with descriptions.

    ⁷  Eliot, Simon, Some patterns and trends in British Publishing 1800–1919. London: The Bibliographical Society, 1994, pp.30–31 and Appendix B, pp.121–122. Bent’s Monthly Literary Advertiser listed 64% more titles for the decade 1850–59, over 1840–49. Publisher’s Circular listed 36% more titles for 1850–59 over the decade 1840–49.

    ⁸  Eliot, Simon, ibid. Appendix D, pp. 134–135.

    ⁹  On a method of producing embossed designs on wood. J. Straker. MS. Transactions of the Society of Arts April 14, 1824; and Minutes of the Committee of Polite Arts, 3 May 1824. I am indebted to Robin de Beaumont for this information.

  ¹⁰  Leathlean, Howard. Henry Noel Humphreys and the Getting-Up of Books in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. In: The Book Collector. Vol. 38. no.2. Summer 1989. pp. 192–209.

  ¹¹  cf Maxims and Precepts of the Saviour; entry no. 58.

  ¹²  These are discussed in: Atterbury, Paul and Wainwright, Clive, Editors. Pugin. A Gothic passion. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, [1994], chapter eleven.

  ¹³  Details of Bennett’s book illustrations are in: Goldman, Paul. Victorian Book Illustration: the Pre-Raphaelites, the Idyllic School and the High Victorians. Aldershot: Scolar, 1996. pp 230–232.

  ¹⁴  See entry no. 512.

  ¹⁵  See entry nos: 10 and 13.

  ¹⁶  See entry no. 579.

  ¹⁷  Grove Dictionary of Art, vol.8.

  ¹⁸  See entry nos. 428, 393, 394.

  ¹⁹  See entry no. 26.

  ²⁰  Grove Dictionary of Art, vol. 9. p.209.

  ²¹  See entry no. 30.

  ²²  See entry no. 31.

  ²³  Pantazzi, Sybille. Four designers of English Publishers’ Bindings, 1850–1880, and Their Signatures. In: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 55. 1961, p. 96.

  ²⁴  See entry no. 45.

  ²⁵  A Memorial of the Marriage of Albert Edward Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra of Denmark, [1864]; Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, 1858; The Library Shakespeare, 1873; The Twigs, 1890; Shakespeare Pictures, 1896.

  ²⁶  King Fo …BL copy at 12811.h.4(4).

  ²⁷  See entry no. 34.

  ²⁸  See entry no. 78 and J. Straker’s invention of 1824 cited above.

  ²⁹  See entry nos. 83,86,87.

  ³⁰  See entry no. 82.

  ³¹  A more detailed assessment of Leighton’s life and his cover designs is to be found in: 1. Edmund M.B. King. The book cover designs of John Leighton F.S.A. In: The British Library Journal Vol. 24, no.2., Autumn 1998, pp.234–255; 2. Pantazzi, Sybille, John Leighton, 1822–1912. A versatile Victorian designer: his designs for book covers. In The Connoisseur, Vol. 152, April 1963, pp. 262–273.

  ³²  See entry no. 138.

  ³³  See entry no. 472.

  ³⁴  See Jack Frost and Betty Snow, or Jingles and Jokes for Little Folks; entry nos. 276 and 456.

  ³⁵  For example, Dew drops for Spring Flowers, or for The Plants of the Bible; entry nos. 257 and 234.

  ³⁶  The drawings are in the John Leighton boxes, John Johnson Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

  ³⁷  Leighton made designs for several Mackenzie publications originally issued in successive parts, which had paper wrappers. The parts were bound also in cloth, for which Leighton provided a different design. Seven designs are listed.

  ³⁸  See entry no. 467.

  ³⁹  See entry nos. 208 and 184

  ⁴⁰  Of some 456 Leighton designs catalogued, 51 have bookbinder’s tickets of Leighton Son & Hodge.

  ⁴¹  For a further account of Roger’s cover designs, see Edmund M.B. King The book cover designs of William Harry Rogers. In: For the Love of Binding. Studies in Historical Bookbinding Presented to Mirjam Foot. Edited by David Pearson. London British Library, 2000, pp. 319–329.

  ⁴²  Goldman, Paul. Victorian Illustration. London: Scolar Press, 1996. The Pre-Raphaelites: The Inner Circle, p.2.

  ⁴³  For a full discussion of Rossetti’s cover designs, see: Barber, Giles. Rossetti, Ricketts, and Some English Publishers’ Bindings of the Nineties. In: The Library. 5th series. 1970. p. 311–330.

  ⁴⁴  Entry nos. 603, 605.

  ⁴⁵  BL staff copy.

   ⁴⁶  Price: five shillings. Entry no. 604; BL C. 116.b.9.

  ⁴⁷  Barber, op. cit., p. 316.

  ⁴⁸  The Macmillan Archive copy is in Box 024.

  ⁴⁹  Darley, Lionel. Bookbinding then and now. Faber, 1959. Caption to plate opposite p. 38.

  ⁵⁰  See Entries 610–615.

  ⁵¹  Entry no. 691.

  ⁵²  BL copy at Tab.437.a.2.

  ⁵³  Entry no. 622.

  ⁵⁴  Entry no. 621.

  ⁵⁵  Warren worked with W. R. Tymms on J. B. Waring. Masterpieces of Industrial Art & Sculpture at the International Exhibition, 1862. London: Day & Son, 1863.

  ⁵⁶  Who was Who, 1897–1916; and Pantazzi, 4D p.93.

  ⁵⁷  Pantazzi, 4D p. 93.

  ⁵⁸  Information from the Macmillan House website.

  ⁵⁹  Information from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website; www.fco.gov.uk

  ⁶⁰  Information from the Judge Institute of Management Studies website, now occupying the former Addenbrooke’s site.

  ⁶¹  The industrial arts of the nineteenth century. A series of illustrations of the choicest specimens produced by every nation at the Great Exhibition of works of industry, 1851. Dedicated, by permission, to his Royal Highness the Prince Albert. London, Day & Sons, lithographers to the Queen, 1851. 2 vols. 158 plates, with descriptions.

  ⁶²  The upper cover is reproduced in R. McLean. Victorian publishers’ book-bindings in cloth and leather. London, Gordon Fraser, 1974, p. 73.

  ⁶³  For further details of the history of this block through several editions, see Edmund M.B. King. Curry and Rice. In: The Book Collector, vol. 45 no. 4, Winter 1996, pp. 568–570.