Vellum--Calf--Pig skin--Sheep skin--Goat skin--Seal skin, etc.
Prepared skins of animals have been the most generally used of all
materials for covering bindings of manuscripts or printed books.
Leather is tanned skin, and the hair is generally removed. Bindings
that have the hair still left on the leather are usually of an
elementary kind and are intended to be carried about in pockets. They
are not common. Vellum (calf skin), and parchment (sheep skin), are
not tanned, but are prepared with lime and are white. Not uncommonly,
especially in Germany, other skins were so prepared. Pig skin, deer
skin, goat skin, horse skin, and donkey skin were all “vellumised,” and
are all very strong and take excellent impressions in blind.
It is likely enough that vellum was used for the first covering of
books, simply enclosing the sections, the ends of the bands drawn in,
without boards. Such bindings are excellent for thin books, and they
were successfully re-introduced in recent times by William Morris,
always used with ties, as otherwise the vellum crinkles up.
“Vellum” bindings made now, unless specially ordered, are only ordinary
bindings in boards covered with vellum. Vellum is strong, but has
some disadvantages. Although gold looks beautiful upon vellum it is
difficult to work, and title labels do not stick to it well. If kept
near the light it turns to something very like egg-shell and chips off.
This defect was known to librarians in past times, and they met it by
keeping their vellum books backs inwards, the forages outwards. Many
instances of this manner of keeping vellum books occur in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford, and they generally have their old pressmarks, and
sometimes titles, written across the top of the forage. Old vellum
was cut thick, and seldom ornamented, and if kept dry in the dark it
is an excellent material. The same peculiarities exist in the case of
parchment, which is, however, a very inferior skin, thinner, weaker,
and not so good looking. Parchment is frequently described, and used,
as vellum, and few purchasers know the difference; but the market value
of parchment is less than half that of vellum. Vellum is particularly
well suited for bindings kept in large towns, as dust does not stick
to it, and it is easily cleaned. In time it assumes a creamy colour
that is delightful. From the late sixteenth century until now, vellum
stained green has been commonly used in England.
White vellumised leather, probably deer skin, has always been much
liked in England from the time of Henry VIII., many of whose books
were bound in this material: among them a copy of Elyot’s “Image of
Governance,” printed in London in 1541, which is one of the first books
with gold tooling upon it done in this country. Several books were
bound in the same thick white leather for the other Tudor sovereigns,
as well as for some of their richer subjects, but in the seventeenth
century limp vellum once more asserted its sway and became very popular
in England for highly valued books. The brilliancy of the gilding upon
some of these bindings is quite wonderful; it is certainly doubtful
if any modern finishers could equal the technical beauty of the work.
Then in the eighteenth century, vellum, though still much esteemed,
only took its place as a covering for boards, and once more, in the
nineteenth century, Morris restored it to its proper use as a limp
binding.
In 1785, James Edwards of Halifax patented a way of rendering vellum
transparent, so that paintings underneath it showed through, and he
used it with much success. The process has been revived of late years
in England.
The Dutch binders have always liked vellum, but it is used with boards
and never limp. Dutch vellum bindings are usually coloured, not well
done, but at a distance they look decorative, and were certainly very
popular. They often have clasps and painted edges.
A few bindings have been made in England, France, and Holland, covered
with pierced vellum, showing coloured silk underneath. They are not
very satisfactory and soon get out of order.
After vellum comes calf, the outer skin of the same animal, tanned.
Calf is a good second, and I think altogether, up to about the end
of the eighteenth century, that it has been more used than any other
leather. The main difference between old calf and modern calf is that
the old leather was properly tanned with oak bark or sumach, and cut
thick, whereas modern calf used for binding is abominably tanned,
quickly and disastrously, and cut thin. There is no better leather than
old calf, and it was used universally; England, France, Germany, and
Italy all liked it; it was delightful to decorate, either in blind or
gilt, and it mellowed with age to a rich mahogany brown. Italian and
sixteenth century English binders stained their fillets black, and
several of these calf bindings, richly gilded, and with black fillets,
are quite splendid, in perfect taste.
The surface of calf is smooth, and it is very sensitive to all sorts of
stains.
Calf is seen at its best when it is used to take impressions from panel
stamps, but its beautiful surface and sensitiveness to stains of all
kinds has made it a favourite ground for all sorts of fancy markings,
most of which, however charming they may be at first, end by destroying
the leather.
Russia leather is calf prepared with willow bark and scented with
birch oil. It is a modern leather, and lasts badly, and is generally
diced,--that is to say, covered all over with diagonal rulings. It
was a favourite leather of Roger Payne’s. It is said that a book
bound in Russia leather will last better if much used, and no doubt
this is true, not only of Russia but of any other leather. As a rule
leather bindings in libraries are starved; they get dry, and readily
absorb animal oil from the human hand. The truth of this may be found
in the fact that numbers of dictionaries and books of reference were
preferentially bound in Russia leather some thirty or forty years ago,
and whereas unused books bound at the same time in the same way now
show rotting leather, the reference books which have been continually
used are quite sound and supple.
Cow hide is like a magnified calf leather, and shows a slightly pitted
surface. It is not often used, but is of much value for very large
books that are worth full binding, as one piece of hide could be cut
large enough, for instance, to full-bind the _Skibbereen Eagle_, one
of the largest Irish newspapers. It would take three or four of the
largest goat skins to do this, and it is always advisable to avoid
joins, wherever possible, in a binding. But there is one drawback to
the use of hide for binding: it is practically impossible to cut it
smooth; however skilfully it may be pared, when it gets on the book
it is always ridgy. This is, of course, not very important, but it
militates against the use of hide except when absolutely necessary. For
the rest, hide takes colour well, and it is a very handsome leather,
and when it is finished simply with very broad gold fillets it is very
ornamental.
Pig skin is perhaps the most familiar of all bookbinding leathers to
the outside world, because saddles are made of it. It is a thick, rich
leather, and, so to speak, full of life. It is not suitable for small
books, but very good for large ones, and has been used in England off
and on for a long time, but never very much. Charles Lewis executed
some fine examples of his larger bindings in pig skin, but I think he
never cared much for it.
Pig skin responds admirably to treatment with lime, the same method of
preparation as used for vellum; and this white “vellumised” pig skin
has always been the most favoured material for the covering of fine
German books of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
Many of these bindings are perfect in their way, covered all over with
delicate roll stamps showing marvellous definition and clearness on the
hard white surface.
Fine though all their impressions are, it cannot be denied that they
are difficult to see; the impressions are shallow, and indeed the
designs can often be more easily made out by help of a rubbing with
heelball on soft white paper than by examining the binding itself.
Pig skin can be recognised by its smooth hard surface, strongly pitted
with bristle holes. It is closely imitated in inferior leather, bristle
holes and all, and when such imitation is actually on a book it is very
difficult to detect, but if in skin form it can easily be recognised.
In real pig skin the bristle holes penetrate right through the leather,
and show quite as much at the back as they do in the front, whereas in
the imitation they show little, if at all, at the back. Also the back
of real pig skin is of very firm, close texture, but the imitation
shows a more or less woolly or loose grained back, as it is generally
made of sheep skin. French binders have never favoured pig skin
much--it is not dainty enough for them.
Sheep skin has always been a favourite leather for bookbinding, but it
is not a fine leather and has never been used for first-rate binding.
It has, however, been more worked up than anything else into imitations
of fine leathers.
The imitation of fine leather in inferior sheep skin has been for a
long time a very important industry, and it is one which is still with
us. All fine leathers show a particular and well known grain on their
surface, but the most largely imitated is that of goat skin or morocco.
In a well grained skin of morocco, the beautiful grain is strongly
marked, whether it be “pinhole” or “straight”--so strongly marked
indeed that a cast of it can well be made in plaster of paris. From
such a cast a metal die can be made, and when this die is strongly
pressed upon a prepared piece of sheep skin, which will take an
impression extremely well, the result is that a surface is produced
which is so exactly like a piece of morocco that even a leather expert
may be, and often is, taken in by it. In course of time, however, the
impression flattens out, and the fraud betrays itself.
When such a stamped sheep skin is new on a book, and finished with
gold, no one would for a moment suspect its genuineness, but if in skin
form, the back of the leather will at once betray it. Real morocco has
a hard close grain, but the back of the imitation will show a loose
soft texture. Other leathers are imitated in the same way: pig skin,
lizard skin, and others; and although there has been, and still is,
much of such imitation used in the matter of bookbindings, there is
still more of it used in the furniture trade.
But putting aside these base uses of sheep skin, it has a very fair
record to show on its own unaided merits. Many early Italian bindings,
good ones, were made in sheep skin; certainly it has not lasted well,
but no doubt when new it was pleasing enough. In England, many of the
early fifteenth century panel stamp bindings were made in sheep skin,
not quite satisfactory now, but also probably well enough when new.
It is impossible to say much in favour of modern roan, the trade name
for sheep skin, which has suffered badly at the hands of the tanner
and the dyer; also probably the binders have not been without fault,
as in order to get the leather flexible for joints and bands they have
acquired a pernicious habit of paring it too thin, and another, equally
hurtful, of unduly pulling and stretching it so that the fibres, or
what is left of them, get strained and broken.
Skiver is part of a split sheep skin, the surface of which is
altogether artificial. It is much used for cheap pamphlet bindings
and looks well for the moment, but is not so strong as good paper. It
is wonderful how cleverly the “paste grain” or artificial surface of
skiver is made; it deceives most people easily. The remaining part
of a split sheep skin is prepared quite differently and is made into
“chamois” leather. Although this is not used for actual bindings, it is
often enough made into linings for loose covers of fine books. It does
well for this purpose, but must be kept in a very dry place as it has a
certain affinity for damp.
The finest of all leathers for binding is goat skin, morocco as we
now call it, from the reputed land of its origin. “Levant morocco” is
still the name of the finest skins. Goats, however, have of course been
common enough all over the world for ages, and so we find very ancient
bindings in goat skin, quite possibly the most ancient, although I
rather incline to vellum in this connection.
Many of the English twelfth to fourteenth century blind tooled bindings
are in goat skin, tanned brown, most likely with oak bark, and from
that period until now it has always been used here, at some periods
more than others.
Goat skin always shows small hair dots in groups all over its surface;
it is not quite smooth like calf, and also it shows certain structural
striations. In early goat bindings both these marks show clearly, and
until the time of Roger Payne in the eighteenth century, the leather
was left in its natural state so far as surface marks went.
Italian bookbinders at an early date saw the beauty of natural sunk
lines on goat skin, and accentuated them by rubbing in gold leaf. On
such bindings the markings on the leather show as fine gold lines; it
is a pretty idea, and can often be found on sixteenth century bindings,
especially on those that were made for Tommaso Maioli.
French morocco bindings are frequently stained with colour,
particularly those which were made about the time of Henri II. in
the sixteenth century. The stain is usually put on the fillets or
arabesques surrounding a central oval, in which is often a painted
coat-of-arms. But as a rule such coloured bindings are in calf, which
takes stain more easily than morocco.
Goat leather has never been so much liked by German binders as calf or
pig skin. This is partly due to the fact that German bindings are as a
rule ornamented with blind tooling, and goat skin is never satisfactory
when treated in this way: its grain is against it; but for gold
tooling, which has been brought to its greatest perfection by Italian,
French and English binders, there is nothing that gives so fine a
result as goat leather.
Roger Payne saw and liked the natural grain of goat skin, or, as we
may now call it, morocco. But he found that in many cases he could
get a better impression from his very delicately cut stamps in Russia
leather. Here, however, he was restricted to one colour, and his
favourite colour, a neutral green, could only be procured in morocco.
So he ironed the morocco to flatten its natural hills and dales, and
produced something like what is now called “crushed” morocco. Payne’s
smooth morocco is, however, not quite our modern “crushed”; it is
smoother, because now we “grain” our leather strongly before crushing
it, whereas Payne ironed his without first increasing its natural
grain by artificial means. Morocco is often badly injured by the
ironing being done with irons that are too hot.
But Payne went a step farther. No doubt he experimented much with
morocco, and it is likely enough that before endeavouring to smoothen
out his skins he wetted them thoroughly. If he wetted a fine skin of
morocco overnight and left it alone, perhaps doubling it or rolling
it up, he would have noticed next morning that the natural grain had
become much intensified, due to a slight shrinkage of the leather,
and showed as a particularly effective breaking up of the surface.
Some such chance led him to make definite experiments with a view to
exaggerating the natural grain of morocco, and he very soon found out
that if a damped skin was well rolled in one direction it assumed
permanently what is now known as a “straight” grain. That is to say,
the surface of the leather is lined in the same sort of way as a
ploughed field is, but not quite so regularly. The ridges and furrows
all run in one direction. Several of Payne’s bindings are bound in
straight grain morocco, but judging from his own work, he never got any
farther with his graining.
At a later time, I think towards the middle of the nineteenth century,
it was found out that if the process of straight graining was carried
out a second time at right angles to the first operation, the little
straight furrows and ridges were broken up, and a surface was produced
that consisted of a series of minute hillocks, like a field that has
been harrowed, and this is known as a “pin-head” grain. Both these
grainings improve the strength of the leather, as it contracts after
the wetting and also the wear falls on the tops of the ridges or
hillocks before it reaches the body of the leather.
French binders have always preferred smooth or crushed morocco for
their bindings, as it is easier to gild upon. Morocco is sensitive to
damp, and if affected it quickly betrays it by giving out the strong
scent of goat which is normally quite absent.
Two new leathers have been recently put upon the market as rivals
of morocco: one of these is seal skin and the other the skin of the
sea-lion.
Seal skin is finished in the same way as morocco and looks very like
it, but it is, I think, not so good. It is softer, more full of oil and
has a peculiar, almost fishy, smell. The softness of seal leather makes
it unfit for binding books that are likely to have much hard wear, but
the oiliness is probably its worst fault, as books standing next to it
are apt to be stained. But it is undoubtedly a good-looking and useful
leather, and if it can be put upon the market at a less cost than
morocco it is sure to have a considerable vogue. Sea-lion skin is only
fit for use on big books; it is very strong and is curiously ridged in
large ridges. It has the same oiliness that seal has, but not in so
marked a degree.
There are, of course, several other leathers in which books have been
bound as curiosities, and these are generally noted in some way; a book
in the British Museum is lettered outside “Kangaroo,” and manuscript
notes are in others telling us in what strange materials they are
covered. Fish skin, known as shagreen, has sometimes been used for
bindings; it is very strong but inelastic, and soon goes at the joints.
In the seventeenth century it was largely imitated in calf, stamped
with a grain.
Perhaps the most curious leather in which any book can be bound is
human skin. Such treasures are by no means unknown. It is said that a
friend of Camille Flammarion the French writer, possessed beautiful
shoulders, and that when she died she bequeathed her skin to him as he
had always admired it. He had the skin tanned and used some of it for
a binding of one of his own books, “Ciel et Terre.” There are other
examples in private ownership, but so far as public libraries are
concerned the only instance I know of is now in the Carnavalet Library
at Paris. It is a copy of the Constitution of 1793, and is bound in the
skin of one of the revolutionaries who was killed at the time. The skin
was tanned at Meudon. Human skin, undyed, looks like thick calf, and it
is most difficult to get entirely rid of the hair.
It is to be regretted that of late years the desire for beautifully
coloured leathers has induced the need for much treatment before the
dyes, mostly aniline, could be properly applied. In the course of
this treatment there has been an undue use of sulphuric acid, and the
presence of this acid is fatal to the lasting qualities of any leather.
Attention has, however, been drawn to the evil from authoritative
sources, and now sound leathers can be obtained, and it is to be hoped
that the public will second the endeavours of the committee appointed
by the Society of Arts by always insisting on the use of sound and
certified leather to bind their valuable books in.
BOOKS TO CONSULT.
SOCIETY OF ARTS.--Report of the Committee on Leather for Bookbinding.
_London_, 1905.
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.--Leather for Libraries. _London_, 1905.