The Book of the Erinyes

Yesterday I spent the day in London doing a whistle-stop tour of a few exhibitions as background research for the Book of the Erinyes.

Bookbinding at the V&A

First stop was the V&A in South Kensington to see a small display of Fine Bindings for the Man Booker Prize 2009 designed by the Society of Designer Bookbinders.

It’s only a small display (6 books) but it’s well worth seeing these bindings “in the flesh” as they’re great. The display can be found in Room 74 (20^th Century section) of the V&A until 21^st March 2010, and admission is free.

The binding illustrated here is by Rachel Ward-Sale. More information about all six bindings, their binders, and the techniques & materials used can be found on the Society of Designer Bookbinders website.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption

After the V&A I headed up to Soho to see Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption at the Lazarides Gallery in Greek Street — an exhibition of political comic book and graphic novel work by artists and writers including Dave McKean, Pat Mills, Peter Kuper, Janek Koza, Dan Goldman, and pop culture figures Lightspeed Champion and V V Brown.

I’m particularly fond of Dave McKean’s artwork—especially the magnificent Sandman covers—so it was great to see some of his larger-scale collages close-up.  His artwork on display was about the widespread corruption surrounding AIDS relief to villages in China.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption is on until 28^th November 2009 at the Lazarides Gallery, Greek Street, London.  Admission is free.

One of the fashions of the “Gothic Revival” during the mid-1840s to 1860s was for “monastic” style bindings that imitated the Medieval wooden book covers.

Rather than reproducing these in wood, the Victorians (presumably for reasons of cost and mass production) recreated this style with  Plaster of Paris and a filler (possibly papier-mâché and antimony?), which was then formed in a rigid frame usually made of metal. Another source suggests they were made from “fibrous plaster and paper pulp reinforced with metal”.  I suspect some more research is needed on my part!

The technique was  patented by the British firm J. Jackson & Son.  Print runs of over 1000 were needed to offset the expense of producing the complex molds, according to bookbinding historian Bernard Middleton.

From what I can find out, the technique seems to be especially associated with the British illustrator and illuminator Henry Noel Humphreys (1810–1879).  Humphreys was influenced by his study of medieval manuscripts during a stay in Italy as a young man.

The finished results have been described as resembling “nothing so much as cast iron” (Bookbinding in the British Isles: sixteenth to the twentieth century, Part 2. London: Maggs Bros. Ltd., 1996)

Some Examples of “Papier Mâché” Bindings

English Bible, 1849

Black papier mâché of a Victorian Gothic Revival design in imitation of carved wood, featuring arches entwined with flowering vines in the central panel of each cover; covers bevelled. Spine with “Holy Bible” at top and surface of same also encrusted with vinework. Gilt roll on board edges and gilt dentelles on turn-ins; all edges gilt and gauffered in a diamond and dot design. Brass clasp, part missing. Binding attributed to D. O. Smith of London, as per McLean who illustrates an identical binding on an 1851 Bible from the same publishers.

More details at The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company

Parables of Our Lord, edited by Henry Noel Humphreys, 1847.

Parables is Humphreys’ first printed illuminated book in a papier-mâché binding. The publisher recorded that 2,000 copies of Parables were printed in 1847, of which 1,000 were sold to D. Appleton in New York with a changed title page. Longman’s printed a second edition in the same year. Each of the four corners has a wreath containing the head of an angel, a lion, an eagle or an ox, representing Gospel authors Matthew, Mark, John and Luke. Stylized oak leaves occupy the top and bottom central rectangles. The central figure is a sower within a wreath around which two ribbons are wrapped on a staff. “Scripture Parables” appears on the ribbons in raised Gothic letters.

More information at University of Rochester Libraries Rare and Special Books Collection.

The Coinage of the British Empire, by Henry Noel Humphreys, 1855.

The central design of this papier-mâché binding is the royal coat-of-arms as it appeared on the reverse side of the gold sovereign of Henry VIII. The binding is signed “H R”, for William Harry Rogers.

More information at University of Rochester Libraries Rare and Special Books Collection.

A record of the Black Prince, by Henry Noel Humphries, 1849.

The carved cover is taken from one of the compartments of the Prince’s tomb at Canterbury, slightly altered by the addition of a label where the title was inserted and by the extra adornment of the mouldings. The turn-ins are blocked in gold. The design is identical for both covers. Two decorated raised borders are separated by a border of bosses. The central rectangle is filled with symmetrical medieval decorative motifs. The coat of arms of the Black Prince is on the centre. The title words are within a ribbon, which is above and on each side of the coat of arms.

More information at Memorial University Digital Archives Initiative.

One of the elements of the handmade Book of the Erinyes will be the use of marbled paper — sometimes on the outside cover, and sometimes on the endpapers/inside cover.

As with all the parts of the book, I’m determined to make it all myself, so I bought myself a copy of Techniques for Marbleizing Paper by Gabriele Grünebaum.

First I made an alum solution, using 6 teaspoons of Alum in 450ml of water. The alum solution works as a mordant — it fixes the marbling colours onto the surface of the paper. After bringing the solution to the boil then letting it cool, I sponged it liberally onto a number of sheets of paper then left them overnight to dry.

The next day I prepared the marbling size, using 6 teaspoons of Carragheen Moss Powder dissolved in 4 pints of hand-hot water, and left it to cool before starting some experiments, following the patterns in Gabriele Grünebaum’s book.

I decided to use Acrylic Inks — they don’t require any dispersing agent to be added for marbling, and the pigments are strong enough to retain a good strong colour even when spread across the surface of the size.  The ones I bought come with pipettes in the lids of the bottles, which made the process even easier.

I was fairly pleased with the results, but I’m obviously going to have to get a lot more practice to control the process.

Nonpareil pattern:

Nonpareil pattern:

Wavy Combed:

As the pace has started to pick up on the Book of the Erinyes project I decided it was time to get some much-needed bookbinding practice.

I’d sewn together a collection of blank signatures a week-or-so ago and tipped on the endpapers, but I was feeling somewhat nervous about the case binding.

Today I took the plunge and put together my first case binding, and attached it to the signatures to produce a finished book.

I was fairly pleased with the results — although the edges of the pages are very uneven from where I’d had to cut them with a knife since I don’t have a guillotine or a plough for trimming the pages properly.

I’ve been teaching myself bookbinding, and there have been three books which have been a great help:

• Hand Bookbinding — A Manual of Instruction by Aldren A. Watson, Dover Publications Inc.
• Handmade Bookbinding Techniques by Josep Cambras, A & C Black.
• The Bookbinding Handbook by Sue Doggett, Search Press.

I’d recommend all of these three books to anyone thinking of teaching themselves hand bookbinding.

The Handmade Books DVD from Shepherds was also an invaluable help — although the books mentioned above are excellent, watching the techniques being demonstrated lets you fully understand the process.

So my first book is bound and I’ve learnt a lot about all the necessary techniques that I can use on the Book of the Erinyes.  I’ve got at least a couple of months until the text and photographs for the Book of the Erinyes will be ready, so I’m going to do a few more practice pieces using blank paper over the coming weeks.

Just got back from seeing Romilly Saumarez Smith: Bookbindings for Eileen Hogan at the V&A.
It’s a small exhibition, just outside the National Art Library, but it’s definitely worth a visit.

Obviously I was on the look-out for inspiration for binding the Book of the Erinyes, and Romilly Saumarez Smith didn’t let me down.

Romilly Saumarez Smith studied book binding and paper conservation at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts and went on to become the first female forwarder at Zaehnsdorf’s Bindery (Zaehnsdorf’s Bindery was taken over by Shepherds in 1998 and the bindery now trades under the single name of Sangorski & Sutcliffe.).  In the 1990s she began increasingly to use metal in her bindings, and gradually moved to making jewellery.

One of the innovative materials Saumarez Smith uses for binding is pillow ticking (the strong cotton fabric used to cover pillows and mattresses). The ticking is coloured with multi-layered washes of leather dye, backed with Japanese paper and rubbed with beeswax.  She also uses dye and wax resist techniques to great effect.

The exhibition at the V&A is on until 2^nd August 2009.  More details on the V&A website.

I’m lucky to be on a work trip to New York at the moment, and this morning—my bodyclock still working on UK time, and the rain pouring down—I managed to grab some time to visit the Morgan Library and Museum on Madison Avenue, not far from my hotel.

The Morgan began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan housing his collection of illuminated, literary, and historical manuscripts, early printed books, and old master drawings and prints.

The main focus of my visit to this institution was to see—first-hand—a Gutenberg Bible (the Library owns three of them!) printed in 1455 by Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press and movable type.

The visit was a fantastic mine of inspiration, from the wonderful library itself (illustrated here — photo by machbel, found on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons, used with thanks), to the vast array of old books (including some great Books of Hours), the Gutenberg Bible itself, and a fantastic collection of artwork encompassing personal favourites such as Joseph Cornell, Egon Schiele, and Jim Dine, as well as preparatory sketches and drawings by old masters.

I left the galleries and went to the Library shop feeling very pleasantly overwhelmed, my head overflowing with ideas and inspiration for the Book of the Erinyes.

In the shop, in addition to a couple of postcards, I bought a copy of Miniature Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures — a wonderful, richly illustrated, book exploring the world of books that are less than 3 inches high.

I don’t actually have a huge interest in miniature books, but the bindings illustrated in this book are wonderful — I think the creators decided that they could have more fun with small books.

They range from traditional leather bindings to bindings made of mother-of-pearl (popular as a deluxe binding in the 19^th century), gold-thread on silk, tortoiseshell, copper, velvet, gold, silver filigree, palekh lacquer (a Russian folk craft), polycarbonate, and enamel. Some are plain, others gilt-tooled, embedded with emeralds, amethysts or pearls, embossed, embroidered, engraved, or decorated with tiny enamel portraits.

The wealth of creativity displayed in this book is amazing, and will certainly prove invaluable as inspiration for binding the Book of the Erinyes.

Inspiration #1: The following passage from a wonderful book by Gene Wolfe called The Shadow of the Torturer where the protagonist Severian is listening to the reminiscences of the old blind Librarian, Master Ultan.

I first read this book when I was 14, back in 1984. I’ve probably re-read it 20 times since and it remains one of my favourite books:

“I was sitting there, as I said, and had been for several watches, when I came to me that I was reading no longer. For some time I was hard put to say what I had been doing. When I tried, I could only think of certain odors and textures and colors that seemed to have no connection with anything discussed in the volume I held. At last I realized that instead of reading it, I had been observing it as a physical object. The red I recalled came from the ribbon sewn to the headband so that I might mark my place. The texture that tickled my fingers still was that of the paper in which the book was printed. The smell in my nostrils was old leather, still wearing the traces of birch oil. It was only then, when I saw the books themselves, when I began to understand their care.”

His grip on my shoulder tightened. “We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, are for the most part of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized. We have books bound wholly in metals of unknown alloy, and books whose bindings are covered with the thickest gems. We have books cased in perfumed woods shipped across the inconceivable gulf between creations—books doubly precious because no one on Urth can read them.”

“We have books whose papers are matted of plants from which spring curious alkaloids, so that the reader, in turning their pages, is taken unaware by bizarre fantasies and chimeric dreams. Books whose pages are not paper at all, but delicate wafers of white jade, ivory, and shell; books too who leaves are the desiccated leaves of unknown plants. Books we have also that are not books at all to the eye: scrolls and tablets and recordings on a hundred different substances. There is a cube of crystal here—though I can no longer tell you where—no larger than the ball of your thumb that contains more books than the library itself does. Though a harlot might dangle it from one ear for an ornament, there are not volumes enough in the world to counterweight the other.”

Perfect!

One of the things I’ve started considering is how to bind the 30 to 50 copies of the Book of the Erinyes.

I decided right from the start that they’d all be individually hand-bound and I would try different binding materials across the limited edition.

I’ve been on holiday on the Greek island of Naxos for the past couple of weeks and, while touring the souvenir shops I spotted some sketch books/journals for sale that were bound with dried vine leaves.

This seemed like a great idea to steal — especially for a Greek subject like the Erinyes.  So I quickly collected and pressed a dozen vine leaves and brought them back with me.  I like the idea of some of the copies of the Book of the Erinyes being bound in dried Vine Leaves—a particularly Greek motif—is particularly appealing, especially since the vine leaves were specially collected on a Greek island by the artist (no expense is spared scouring the world for materials for my art!).