Not Worth…
In our blog, we have been exploring how care and a good eye have been strong factors in the make-up of the Bolton Library. Sometimes chance plays a part too, as in the case of this multilingual vocabulary. ‘Not worth the cost of binding’ is the handwritten note which appears inside an item now deemed the only known copy in existence. It bears… a new binding.
Never Judge…
‘Never judge a cover by its book’ is the key to looking at bindings. There can often be hundreds of years and hundreds of miles between the two. In Bolton Library A.5.13, we meet Archbishop King’s binder Thomas Fleeson, here at work in Dublin in 1718 on an Antwerp imprint from 1608. A rather fine 19th century centre and cornerpiece binding by James Hayday here covers two 16th century London imprints, and was commissioned at Cashel in 1858 by Bishop Daly, most likely on the advice of archdeacon Henry Cotton. Hundreds of years … hundreds of miles …
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