William Parks, printer and publisher of c< The Maryland Gazette" (1729),likewise puts himself forward as a binder of books in the following language: " N. B.- Old Books are well bound by him"
and Henry De Foreest advertises in his " New York Evening Post" January 17th, 1750, that "all sorts of blank books for Merchants' Accompts are for sale by the printer thereof, Also Old Books Neatly Bound, Lettered or Gilt very expeditiously". These extracts, taken at random from the dusty files of American journals of the Eighteenth century, will suffice to show how generally in those primitive times the printing and the binding, - such as it was, - of a book, were the allotted task of one individual or business firm. As an exception to prove this rule we note the advertisement in Bradford's Gazette, September, 1734, of one Joseph Johnson, that "he is now set up Book-binding for himself as formerly, and lives in Dukes St. (commonly called Bayard St.) near the Old-Slip Market; (New York) where all Persons in Town or Country, may have their Books carefully and neatly new Bound either Plain or Gilt reasonable."
In Samuel Willard's "Body of Divinity" Boston, 1726, one of the controversial writings of which the literature of Puritan New England so largely consisted, we have an example of American book-making from start: to finish.* It is a large folio - one of the first books of its size printed in New England - bound in foxy brown sheep-skin with panelled sides, and so far as the makers were able to accomplish that result, it is a counterpart of contemporaneous English binding. We copied, as best we could, and I fear without proper acknowledgment, both the exteriors and the interiors of the popular English books of the day. As one out of many instances of this practice that might be supplied, we reproduce on a reduced scale one of the plates in a London (1794) edition, of a little work, on the Newtonian system of Philosophy, and one from a reprint of it published in Philadelphia in 1803.
*A Compleat Body of Divinity etc., by the Reverend and Learned Samuel Willard, M.A., Boston, in New England.
Printed by B. Green and S. Kneeland for B. Eliot and D. Henchman and sold at their shops. MDCCXXVI
The latter is illustrated with exact reproductions of the engravings in the London edition, except that the plates are reversed and enlarged as shown on pages 48 and 49. These copies were engraved by William Rollinson, an artist who enjoyed the unique distinction of having chased the buttons upon the coat worn by Washington, at his first inauguration as President of the United States, in Federal Hall, New York. Rollinson's descendants are still engaged in the business of copper-plate engraving in this city.
Isaiah Thomas, whose position as the foremost and most prolific (it is said that at one time he had sixteen presses in use and owned eight book-stores) of New England's eighteenth-century printers, is now clearly recognized, was author, antiquarian, typographer, paper-manufacturer, bookbinder and book-seller all in one. Of which of the disciples of Gutenberg of the present day can all this be said ? That Thomas was also a born bibliophile will, I think, appear by what I shall presently relate.
The proclivity, amounting at times to a mania, of the ordinary bookbinder to plough ruthlessly through the leaves of a book, even though the process involves the snipping away of the entire margin and occasionally of a portion of the author's text, is so well known to the fraternity of book-collectors as to have become proverbial. Listen to friend Thomas's timely word of caution upon this vital point!
" The Directions to the Binder " in the " Elegiac Sonnets and other Poems by Charlotte Smith" published by Thomas at Worcester, Mass., in 1795, contain, in addition to careful instructions for the placing of the plates, this admonition to the binder: " CUT THE BOOK As LARGE EACH WAY As IT WILL BEAR."
These "directions " of old Father Isaiah, with the addition of a short postscript to this effect, "AVOID WHENEVER POSSIBLE ANY USE OF THE KNIFE," might well be engrossed in capital letters and hung upon the wall of every book-binder's shop in the land. This bibliopegistic principle should be impressed with emphasis upon the mind of every apprentice to the art of book-binding, as one of the axioms of his craft.
Thomas states in his "advertisement" that the paper upon which the " Elegiac Sonnets " of Charlotte Smith is printed " is a new business in America, and but lately introduced into Great Britain; it is the first manufactured by the editor". He further informs us that the plates were executed, not by European engravers who settled in the United States, but by an artist who obtained his knowledge in this country. The book, therefore, is throughout of purely domestic manufacture.
This eminent Boston and Worcester printer, the Founder, President and Benefactor of the American Antiquarian Society (for which he erected a building at Worcester, Massachusetts), bound books in a variety of styles pursuant to the notice he inserted at the foot of the green paper covers in which the monthly parts of the Royal American Magazine, edited and published by him and Joseph Greenleaf, were issued, to wit: " Book-binding performed in all its branches with great care and cheap."
Thomas's Chap-Books, such as " The Devil and Dr. Faustus" were covered with a coarse and substantial brown canvas - a coat of buckram - than which, says Andrew Lang, there is nothing cheaper, neater or more durable. The numerous children's books, " Little Goody Two Shoes" " The Juvenile Biographer" and the like, which, issued from the " Columbian" as Thomas named his press, were clad in gay coats of gilt and brilliantly tinted papers, with intent to delight the eyes and conjure the pennies from the pockets of our grandparents, when they were yet in their knickerbockers and short frocks.
The plain leather bindings of Isaiah Thomas are, I judge, represented by the one shown in our plate, which covers a copy of " The Psalms of David, Together with Hymns and Spiritual Songs, with Indexes, and Tables complete by Isaac Watts, D. D.," Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, 1786. It is of sheepskin over oak boards, the former now decidedly the worse for wear. I have not been able to identify Thomas's more elaborate bindings, if any such have survived to our time.
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