Bookbinding in the 19th and the First Half of the 20th Century: Binding Technique and the Strucural Elements of the Book

Abstract

The external appearance of a book depends on a number of factors, one of which is the method according to which the bookbinding is executed. Consequently, many other features of the book are related to the applied technology of the bookbinding. The article deals with various methods of bookbinding, which result in differences in the looks and the making of many of the elements of the final product: endpapers, page-linking techniques, decorating of page exteriors, methods of constructing the binding, i.e. the fixing together of the body of the book with the covers, and finally the construction and the decoration of the covers themselves. The author concentrates on the bookbinding techniques of the 19^th and early 20^th century, dealing both with traditional handicraft, which manifests little change since the Renaissance period, as well as on the occurring transformation, which consisted in gradual mechanisation of the bookbinding process, and on the arrival of serial binding of larger quantities of books, or even of whole issues.