Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Family Devotional Bible by The London Printing & Publishing

For about a decade, I've had a horrible chronic joint pain on the upper part of my body, namely my shoulder, shoulder blade, elbows, wrists and fingers. I normally pop in a couple of Advil to release the pain, (I'm not into any sort of pharmaceutical painkillers that are addictive!) but once the ache starts, it just doesn't go away completely for a few days. Boy, I'll probably suffer from a severe arthritis when I get old.. Well, if you get deeper into the trade of bookbinding, you'd know it's really not like how it's presumed in the modern world as a friendly craft hobby. It seems that there are more women who are interested in bookbinding than men now a days, but I tell you, Girls! It's rather tough on girls physically. Anyway, I have been having this usual, utterly annoying pain on my shoulder blade since I finished this Family Bible a few days ago. No sooner had I started working on it than I regretted choosing it as my next job because I realized I couldn't even hold the Bible with my hands, (I have rather small hands..) and it weighted a ton! This is The Family Devotional Bible with marginal references by The Rev. Matthew Henry, printed & published by The London Printing & Publishing Co., Ltd. It doesn't have a publishing dated mentioned, but based on the family record and the binding design of this type of Family Bible by this publisher, I'd assume it's published in the early-mid 1800's. I took photos of the title page and the frontispiece, so if anyone knows the publishing year of this Bible, let me know! This Bible simply required an external and internal re-hinge, and repairs and reconstructions on the edges and corners. But what's so damn troublesome was its size... The average book block of a normal Family Bible is about 2.5"~3.5", but this is one of those really thick Devotional Bible which block thickness is about 5", and with the covers, it's 5.5". Needless to say, it's super heavy... Well, it successfully triggered my chronic pain! (And stupidly, after this Bible was finished, I started working on a job that involved a serious amount of finishing (hand gold gilding) and now I'm useless. I think I'm gonna have to put the gilding work aside and probably work on something less evil !!!!!!!!! 

-----Follow-up-----
Someone gave me an insight as to the publishing date of this Bible. Here's his/her comment.
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I own one of the family devotional bibles by Matthew Henry. The reason there is no publishing date is that it was not published at one time. This volume was published in 16 parts. To acquire a complete copy one had to start a subscription in 1840 and maintain the subscription until 1861 or 2. Anyone who acquired all 16 parts could submit them to be bound. My copy does have a publishing date of 1865. The dates that individual copies were bound could vary considerably.

6 comments:

  1. Saw this post and sighed.
    After serious amounts (many days in a row) of finishing or backing there is always a string of pain starting from the neck and going all the way down to the fingertips of my right arm. I can really feel you there.

    I was just the other day explaining to someone how hard bookbinding is physically to craftsmen of the sort. Many hours of standing, bent over a bench, applying pressure while being in all kinds of uncomfortable postures for the spine and last but not least with a constant focus on details that are half a mm in size. One that just enters the bindery for a few minutes can't really understand how grueling binding can be to body and mind.
    The only thing I've found that helps is having a really tall bench (mine is 45inches high), it saves you a lot of back strains and possibly from more serious issues as time goes by.

    Oh, and such thick and heavy books are truly troublesome to work with. Like binder-hating Behemoths! The interior looks lovely though.

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    1. Hi Drimitris! Aren't those pains horrible!? Ah, now I have another person with whom I can commiserate the hardship of being a craftsman/woman! And yes! We do use tall stools because they indeed help when it comes to detailed works like finishing.<----mentally stressful as well...(No mistakes allowed!!AH!) But you see, I'm not a big person, as you can imagine.. (I'm an Asian after all! Genetically we are smaller people!), so when it comes to handling super heavy things, it just cripple me. Anyway, the pain's gone now, so I feel wonderful now!

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  2. I own one of the family devotional bibles by Matthew Henry. The reason there is no publishing date is that it was not published at one time. This volume was published in 16 parts. To acquire a complete copy one had to start a subscription in 1840 and maintain the subscription until 1861 or 2. Anyone who acquired all 16 parts could submit them to be bound. My copy does have a publishing date of 1865. The dates that individual copies were bound could vary considerably.

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    Replies
    1. Wow, thank you very much for the information! I learned something new today! <-- my daily goal. ;-)

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  3. I have a volume marked as "Eightieth thousand" (cf your second photo), and I was puzzled to read (at the bottom of the list of illustrations, and immediately before the opening of Genesis) my copy's instructions to the Binder. However this would be useful if various Binders were asked to assemble the entire volume by individual Subscribers on completion of (or some time after completion of) the serialised publication.

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  4. Hi all I have the volume 1 if some buddy is interested mail me vicken1122111@gmail.com

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