Case 16
- Cloth Bindings, Christian Tomes
The Sermon on the Mount. London, Day & Son, 1861.
Imitating the art of the illuminated medieval manuscript, The Sermon on the Mount was designed by the architectural firm of W. and G. Audsley. The binding is of brown sand-grained cloth covering thick card boards, decorated with thirteen coloured and chromolithographed cut-out paper onlays. It has been blocked in gold and black, with the leaves coloured green, the boards bevelled.
Twelve parables of Our Lord. London: Macmillan, 1870.
Bound in brown pebble-grained cloth, this mid-Victorian tome has been blocked in gold and black, with circular chromolithographed paper onlay (featuring a portrait of Christ) and bevelled boards. It contains the binder’s ticket of Burn & Co.
The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. London: Longmans, Green, 1883.
This copy of the New Testament is bound in brown cloth blocked in red, gold, blue and black on the front and spine. The Reed Collection houses a second copy bound in red cloth with a lighter blue ink blocking. In the second half of the nineteenth century it remained common practice to offer new books in a variety of binding styles.