Basic Bookbinding

Starting from basic principles and assuming no previous experience, this modern exposition of the elements of bookbinding enables both the beginner and the expert to apply the latest and most simplified techniques to rebinding old favorites and binding many new paperback books.

A complete list of all necessary materials, including a guide to the proper selection of tools, paper, boards, cloth, leather, or sheepskin covering fabrics and lettering inks and pigments, introduces the subject. In surprisingly easy stages, you are shown how to collate a book, sew it, back it, trim it, make boards, and attach them to the book. Step-by-step instructions and hundreds of photographs and diagrams of equipment and key operations reduce the process to essentials.

Individual chapters are devoted to single-sectioned, multi-sectioned, and case-bound books, hollow-backed and library style binding, the use of end papers, and the most practical methods of lettering the finished book. The author includes a valuable appendix which summarizes the precise steps followed in each operation in convenient tabular form.

An elementary text, simple enough for the beginner yet containing new material of interest to the expert, Basic Bookbinding avoids intricate techniques and elaborate equipment. Mr. Lewis, twice first prize winner in national competition, presents the subject with the clarity born of many years of experience in teaching bookbinding.