Oak Knoll

Tricks of the Trade considers what is not taught - but probably should be - about binding and rebinding books. Written for competent binders and knowledgeable collectors, it brings quirky but effective binding techniques out of obscurity and into the professional repertory. Here are tricks binders can use to polish and refine their bindings, as well as suggestions for repairs that may add value to collections.

Using photographs of her own bindings as illustrations, Jamie Kamph discusses decorative techniques, sources for design ideas, engineering concerns, and ways to both correct and avoid common mistakes. In addition to providing practical solutions, Kamph's advice delves into the grey area between technical discipline and artistic invention.

Detailed instructions and drawings describe binding practices such as corner shaping, headbanding, rebacking, and recasing books. An extensive discussion of gold tooling presents the authors own techniques, a "cheater's guide" of short-cuts, and a chart listing the many variables involved and showing how they relate to one another. Kamph tells the stories of many of her own bindings, including a step-by-step discussion of restoring a first edition of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language.

An initial chapter, "How I Got Here," follows the author's history from writer and publisher to bookbinding student. While working in publishing, she was asked to write a magazine article about hand bookbinding, and she was hooked. She was introduced to Hope Weil and worked in her studio until she felt competent to set up her own business in the 18th-century barn on her New Jersey farm.

Jamie Kamph has worked for preeminent collectors, including William Scheide and Robert Taylor. Her design bindings are in many private collections and such institutions as Princeton University Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Thomas J. Watson Library, The Pierpont Morgan Library, the New York Public Library, and the Bridwell Library at the University of Texas in Austin. Other bindings of hers have been exhibited in Guild of Book Workers' and Designer Bookbinders' exhibits. Her previous book is A Collector's Guide to Bookbinding (1982).