BOOK TERMS:​

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Fine binding: some type of leather on the spine and covers, or on the spine and part of the covers, with the remainder usually cloth or marbled paper covering the boards. Leathers are typically calf, sheep or goat (morocco). Not to be confused with ‘Fine condition.’

 

Three Quarter (¾) bound: common practice of covering the spine and the area of the cover near the spine in leather, then covering the corners of the cover with triangles of leather, with the remainder cloth or paper

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Half bound: half leather, half cloth or paper covering the boards, with leather sometimes covering the corners

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Quarter bound: just the spine and a little bit of the cover is leather, the remainder cloth or paper

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Edges: the sides of the cover that are not the spine: fore edge (opposite the spine), top and bottom

 

Bumped: corners of the covers that are bent in or compressed

 

Leaves: the individual paper sheets of the book

 

Pages: the numbered contents of the book on specific leaves

 

Signatures: the folded and stitched sections of leaves, which can come loose (shaken) in whole chunks

 

Text block: all of the signatures taken together

 

Uncut: leaves that have not been trimmed of their natural ‘deckled’ edges

 

Deckle: the frame into which paper pulp is poured to make high quality hand-laid paper

 

Rag: paper made from recycled linen or cotton dishrags, towels and clothes, primarily in 19th century England to make up for a shortage of wood pulp

 

Spine: the bound edge of the book, made of a head, a foot and often divided by raised bands, which are cords covered by the leather, either used to bind the book, reinforce the spine, for decoration, or all of the above

 

Headband: the multicolored yarn inside the head and foot of the spine

 

Joint: the outside portion of the leather that flexes to open a book’s cover

 

Hinge: the inside of the joint, made by the crease of the endpaper

 

Endpapers: the first paper parts of a book, used to connect the covers to the signatures, often of a different kind than the leaves, usually heavier and marbled in fine bindings

 

Pastedown: the part of the endpaper glued to the inside of the cover

 

Flyleaf: the other half of the endpaper

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Preliminaries: the first few blank leaves after the flyleaf

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Half title page: usually the first printed page announcing the main title of the work, without all the other information on the title page

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Frontispiece: the illustration that faces the title page

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Gilt: gold leaf covering the trimmed top of the text block to protect the leaves from dust

 

Gilt stamped/tooled: gold leaf debossed into the cloth, paper or leather covers or spine

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Blind stamped: decorations in the binding not accompanied by gold leaf

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Dentelles: gilt stamped decorations on the part of the cover leather that has been folded over the edge of the board and glued over the edges of the pastedown, resembling a lace edging on the inside cover

 

Foxing: brown spots that develop over time on the leaves due to a chemical reaction with the paper, often caused by the presence of metallic dust in a bindery or foreign matter being introduced by unclean hands

 

Bookplate: a paper label, often decorative, usually glued to the initial pastedown (inside of front cover) indicating a book’s owner (or former owner)

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Tipped-in: an illustration, often in color, affixed to a leaf but usually not completely pasted down

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n.d.: the book has no date of publication listed on the title page or colophon (publisher’s imprint/details)