The booklover is distinguished from the reader as such by loving his
books, and from the collector as such by reading them. He prizes not
only the soul of the book, but also its body, which he would make a
house beautiful, meet for the indwelling of the spirit given by its
author. Love is not too strong a word to apply to his regard, which
demands, in the language of Dorothy Wordsworth, "a beautiful book, a
book to caress--peculiar, distinctive, individual: a book that hath
first caught your eye and then pleased your fancy." The truth is that
the book on its physical side is a highly organized art object. Not in
vain has it transmitted the thought and passion of the ages; it has
taken toll of them, and in the hands of its worthiest makers these
elements have worked themselves out into its material body. Enshrining
the artist's thought, it has, therefore, the qualities of a true art
product, and stands second only to those which express it, such as
painting and sculpture; but no other art product of its own order, not
the violin nor the jewel-casket, can compare with the book in esthetic
quality. It meets one of the highest tests of art, for it can appeal to
the senses of both beauty and grandeur, either separately, as in the
work of Aldus and of Sweynheym and Pannartz, or together, as in that of
Jenson.
Books have doubtless had their lovers in all ages, under all their
forms. Even the Assyrian clay tablet, if stamped with the words of poet
or sage, might have shared the affection which they inspired. So might
the papyrus roll of the Egyptian, and so does even to-day the parchment
book of the middle ages, whenever its fortunate owner has the soul of a
booklover. From this book our own was derived, yet not without a break.
For our book is not so much a copy of the Roman and medieval book as a
"substitute" for it, a machine product made originally to sell at a
large profit for the price of hand-work. It was fortunate for the early
printed book that it stood in this intimate if not honored relation to
the work of the scribes and illuminators, and fortunate for the book of
to-day, since, with all its lapses, it cannot escape its heritage of
those high standards.
Mr. John Cotton Dana has analyzed the book into forty elements; a
minuter analysis might increase the number to sixty; but of either
number the most are subsidiary, a few controlling. The latter are those
of which each, if decided upon first, determines the character of the
rest; they include size, paper, and type. The mention of any size,
folio, quarto, octavo, twelvemo, sixteenmo, calls up at once a distinct
mental picture of an ideal book for each dimension, and the series is
marked by a decreasing thickness of paper and size of type as it
progresses downward from the folio. The proportions of the page will
also vary, as well as the surface of the paper and the cut of the type,
the other elements conforming to that first chosen.
Next to size, paper determines the expression of a book. It is the
printing material par excellence; but for its production the art could
never have flourished. It is as much preferred by the printer as
parchment was by the scribe. Its three elements of body, surface, and
tint must all be considered, and either body or surface may determine
the size of the book or the character of the type. A smooth surface may
be an element of beauty, as with the paper employed by Baskerville, but
it must not be a shiny surface. The great desideratum in modern paper
from the point of view of the book-buyer is a paper that, while opaque
and tough, shall be thin enough to give us our books in small compass,
one more akin to the dainty and precious vellum than to the heavier and
coarser parchment. It should also be durable.
Type gives its name to the art and is the instrument by which the spoken
word is made visible to the eye. The aims in its design should be
legibility, beauty, and compactness, in this order; but these are more
or less conflicting qualities, and it is doubtful if any one design can
surpass in all. Modern type is cleaner-cut than the old, but it may be
questioned whether this is a real gain. William Morris held that all
types should avoid hair-lines, fussiness, and ugliness. Legibility
should have the right of way for most printed matter, especially
children's books and newspapers. If the latter desire compactness, they
should condense their style, not their types.
A further important element, which affects both the legibility and the
durability of the book, is the ink. For most purposes it should be a
rich black. Some of the print of the early masters is now brown, and
there have been fashions of gray printing, but the booklover demands
black ink, except in ornaments, and there color, if it is to win his
favor, must be used sparingly and with great skill. We are told that the
best combination for the eye is ink of a bluish tint on buff-tinted
paper; but, like much other good advice, this remains practically
untried.
Illustrations have been a feature of the book for over four hundred
years, but they have hardly yet become naturalized within its pages. Or
shall we say that they soon forgot their proper subordination to the
type and have since kept up a more or less open revolt? The law of
fitness demands that whatever is introduced into the book in connection
with type shall harmonize with the relatively heavy lines of type. This
the early black-line engravings did. But the results of all other
processes, from copper-plate to half-tone, conflict with the
type-picture and should be placed where they are not seen with it.
Photogravures, for instance, may be put at the end of the book, or they
may be covered with a piece of opaque tissue paper, so that either their
page or the facing type-page will be seen alone. We cannot do without
illustrations. All mankind love a picture as they love a lover. But let
the pictures belong to the book and not merely be thrust into it.
The binding is to the book what the book is to its subject-matter, a
clothing and protection. In the middle ages, when books were so few as
to be a distinction, they were displayed sidewise, not edgewise, on the
shelves, and their covers were often richly decorated, sometimes with
costly gems. Even the wooden cover of the pre-Columbian Mexican book had
gems set in its corners. Modern ornamentation is confined to tooling,
blind and gilt, and inlaying. But some booklovers question whether any
decoration really adds to the beauty of the finest leather. It should be
remembered that the binding is not all on the outside. The visible cover
is only the jacket of the real cover on which the integrity of the book
depends. The sewing is the first element in time and importance. To be
well bound a book should lie open well, otherwise it is bound not for
the reader but only for the collector.
It cannot be too often repeated that properly made books are not
extremely costly. A modern book offered at a fancy price means either a
very small edition, an extravagant binding, or what is more likely, a
gullible public. But most books that appeal to the booklover are not
excessive in price. Never before was so much money spent in making books
attractive--for the publisher always has half an eye on the
booklover--and while much of this money is wasted, not all is laid out
in vain. Our age is producing its quota of good books, and these the
booklover makes it his business to discover.
In order to appreciate, the booklover must first know. He must be a
book-kenner, a critic, but one who is looking for excellencies rather
than faults, and this knowledge there are many books to teach him. But
there is no guide that can impart the love of books; he must learn to
love them as one learns to love sunsets, mountains, and the ocean, by
seeing them. So let him who would know the joys and rewards of the
booklover associate with well-made books. Let him begin with the
ancients of printing, the great Germans, Italians, Dutchmen. He can
still buy their books if he is well-to-do, or see them in libraries and
museums if he belongs to the majority. Working down to the moderns, he
will find himself discriminating and rejecting, but he will be attracted
by certain printers and certain periods in the last four hundred years,
and he will be rejoiced to find that the last thirty years, though
following a decline, hold their own--not by their mean but by their
best--with any former period short of the great first half-century,
1450-1500.
Finally, if his book-love develops the missionary spirit in him, let him
lend his support to the printers and publishers of to-day who are
producing books worthy of the booklover's regard, for in no other way
can he so effectually speed the day when all books shall justify the
emotion which more than five hundred years ago Richard de Bury, Bishop
of Durham, expressed in the title of his famous and still cherished
work, the _Philobiblon_.