This is a softcover reprint of Volume 6 in the Suave Mechanicals: Essays on the History of Bookbinding series, which was originally published in hardcover in 2020 and which has been out-of-print for some time. Vol. 6 is dedicated to the "memory and work of Bernard C. Middleton, MBE, who died in January 2019. In the dedicatory section, the voices of numerous friends and colleagues are present, and they, in various ways, tell us a lot about Middleton and his immense contributions to the history and practice of hand bookbinding, and what a kind, generous man and teacher he was."

Table of Contents: Olivia Primanis, "Remembrances: Bernard C. Middleton (1924-2019)"; Julia Miller, "Editor's Preface"; Morgan Simms Adams, "Identifying Evidence of Textile Curtains in Medieval Manuscripts in the Morgan Library & Museum"; Katherine Beaty, "Tackets, Buckles, and Overbands: Italian Stationery Bindings of the HBS Medici Family Collection"; Elise Hochhalter and Giselle Simón, "Life So Far: A Book Model Collection"; Karen Jutzi, "A Late Coptic Binding with Bridled Leather Boards"; Consuela Metzger, Erin Hammeke and Alexander L. Ames, "The Faith that Binds: Swiss Anabaptist Devotional Bookbindings in Early America"; Julia Miller, "Modeling Ambiguity: The al-Mudil Codex (David Psalter)"; Holly Prochaska and Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer, "Adding Value: Increasing Access and Visibility to Historic Binding Structures"; Randy Silverman, "Bernard C. Middleton, MBE (1924-2019): A Biography and Bibliography"; Shannon Zachary, "The Peculiar Impossibility of the Square-Back, Stiff-Spine Case Binding"; bibliographies and index.