The Ladies of the Altar Society of Honolulu, 1888

Traditional photo albums are simply destined to get broken in a messy way because of its construction and often unconventional covers and materials. So, restoring them can be a bit troublesome, and I have to admit that they often end up getting onto our work benches last. Sorry! If you are a client who left a photo album with us and reading this, forgive us! But you gotta have to have a certain mind set to work on (messy) photo albums because it just can be tedious! It normally involves reconstructing / guarding the hinge of each page/panel and it's mentally exhausting, really.. Job itself is not complicated, but is a rather mundane task that sort of eats at you gradually. Ugh..

Here's one of those poor photo albums which neither of us, me or master, wanted to touch for a long, long time.... But like I said, we have to be in a certain mind state to tackle messy photo albums. Thank GOD it didn't have a radically raised "dome" cover boards with embroidery or naughty stuffing, or wooden skeletons underneath that stuck to the cover material like Siamese twins! This just involved reconstruction of the hinges and simple re-hinging, Whew! One problem, which resulted in our avoidance from it, other than a boring task of hinge reconstruction, was the warped boards. The pictures aren't really capturing it, but it was bad. I couldn't heat-press them because of the photographs, so all I could do was to straighten them by cold-pressing as much as I could. It looks a lot better, (mind you), and has indeed eased the degree of warping. But still, it's a bit wobbly. Well, it's gonna have to live with that and it's the fate of this photo album. Can't fight the fate sometimes!

This is a collection of photographs of Hawaii, presented to members of The Ladies of the Altar Society of Honolulu in 1888.

A few bad apples ...

A regular client of ours, Easton Books from Mount Vernon, WA, dropped off a 9 volume set of The Writings of Thomas Jefferson awhile back, asking us to repair rat damage on the spines of two volumes, and a brand new facsimile binding for one volume. If you are a book restorer, you know inquiries like that, wherein every volume except for one or two is in perfect condition, so as to restore only the few damaged ones without making them look out of place amongst the set. Yeah, you know, The Bad Apple restoration. It's actulally a very tricky thing to do, to say the least. Especially, these particular bad apples were difficult, mainly because of the kind of leather I'd have to imitate and seriously heavy molding on one volume, which has infected all the way through to the middle of the book. Naughty, absolutely naughty. So, I had been putting this work aside, and letting myself wait till I felt "right" and mentally ready to tackle it. But, about a week ago, the client called and asked us to finish it up because they wanted to take the set to the annual Antiquarian Book Fair.

So, here they are. I finished them last night, at last. I did all my best to make them look as invisible as possible and naturally blended in among the other volumes. I hope the client approves my work.. and hopefully it'd find a new home during the book fair. **

This is  The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Henry A. Washington, published by J. C. Ricker, Taylor & Maury in 1856.

The Innocents Abroad, 1869

 

It's rather embarrassing to say, but I've never read The Innocents Abroad, Twain's most popular work, featuring the narrative of his travels in Europe. I'd certainly enjoy his humorous cynicism and ironical observation of the unjust contradictions that the righteous would proudly justify, and his timeless critique of the all-too-human society. But I haven't read it. I feel like an illiterate fool. If the client of this book was reading this, he'd certainly be disappointed!

And boy, was I disappointed in the previous restorer of this book. I put the pictures up here, so I don't think I need to point out what I don't like about it in detail, but the strange and sloppy patch-up job on all four corners and the hinge with an unmatched material which needlessly got broken prematurely made me let out a big sigh for sure. Depressing as hell. Anyhow, I re-did what was supposed to be done in the first freaking place, but there are always some sort of problems when it comes to fixing someone else's job, that makes my job imperfect, which pisses me off big time. And the crap he/she left underneath had to stay forever. Don't I just loath it.

Anyway, as you can sense from my whiny rant above, I'm not in a cheery mood lately. Sorry about that. It's just that I'm under pressure and stress that I thought I should let it out a bit.. sigh..

Smollett's Don Quixote, 1755

There's a strange yet rather frequent phenomenon in the bindery that we jokingly call "psychic clients", wherein the client of the book that we are JUST about to work on would call to check the status of his/her book. It's actually scary! It's as if I'm sending some sort of a "telepathic signal" to them unconsciously, or they are sending me one so that I would pick their books to work on. ahhh..

The book featured in this post is one of them. I was digging out orders (books) which were 6, 7 months old, and I picked a couple of them and placed them on my workbench. As I was wondering which one to work on first, the phone rang, and somehow I knew who it was.... AHHHH!!

Anyway, this is a two-volume set of Smollett's Don Quixote. (1755, First Ed. London) It required re-hinging and reconstruction of the top and bottom of the spine, as well as facsimile sewn headbands and repairs of the corners. Also, a part of a skiver label was missing, so I created a patch, on which I re-tooled so that it appears as if there was never a missing piece. It's always difficult (often impossible) to lift the original spine leather without cracking for re-hinging when it's glued to the spine of the book, (called tight-back.) and this wasn't an exception. It was, as always, a nerve racking task. There's a young, preteen boy (I think he's 12.) who visits the bindery at night occasionally when his parents are working in the building. He showed up when I was at a critical point of lifting the spine leather, and just couldn't possibly be interrupted. But, he started running around the room and talking and laughing loud and all.. Ah,, you know what I did? I yelled at him.. I feel horrible.. I have to apologize to him next time I see him... :-(  But for now, just for the sake of it, I'm sending him my apology, telepathically. hummmm f.o.r.g.i.v.e. meeee ~

Dracula, 1897

Since I made a short video clip for the bindery website, (which I posted here on my blog only for 24 hours, a few weeks ago.) the SD card for my digital camera started acting strange and stopped saving pictures. So, I was unable to post anything on my blog for a while. The card's been renewed recently, so here I am, resurrected!

Speaking of resurrection, I just finished restoring a first American edition of Dracula, (who didn't technically "resurrect", but what the heck. He could make you an immortal vampire though. Bite me! :-) Like many other first editions of Dracula, this was rebound in leather from the original paper/cloth cover by the former owner. It has a beautiful blood-red Tiger marble on a black quarter leather binding. This marble paper perfectly, vividly resembles flowing blood. (although I just couldn't capture it well on camera under the horrible lighting in the bindery..) Unfortunately, the binding wasn't immortal and ended up being in my hands some hundred years later. The restoration of this binding was to do the external and internal re-hinge, reconstruction of the head cap on the top side of the spine, and some paper mending and cosmetic repairs on the corners. Very straightforward work, but as I haven't handled a first edition Dracula before, I thought I should post it here as my personal record.

The original paper/cloth cover was kept by the owner alongside the binding. In case someone's interested in seeing it, I'm posting a picture here.

This is Dracula by Bram Stoker, published by Archibald Constable & Company. (Westminster, 2 Whitehall Gardens, 1897)

Le Cuisinier Imperial, 1810

I've been sick since I swallowed a super hard chunk of baguette sandwich and scarred my throat a week ago. ( I couldn't chew it without breaking my teeth, so I thought I should just swallow the darn thing, letting the stomach acid take care of the rest. A big mistake!) I couldn't even speak for the next 24 hours, got a minor fever for a couple of days and now I can't stop coughing, for god's sake. Is baguette loaf supposed to be that hard?? I mean, does it have to be like a rock? Tell me, my French friends! Are Americans getting it all wrong!?

Anyway, continuing from the last post on French cookbooks, (The baguette incident just happened to have happened. Mind you.) this is another of the same client's books, Le Cuisinier Imperial, ou L'art De Faire La Cuisine Et La Pâtisserie Pour Toutes Les Fortunes, by A. Viard, published by N. Barba in Paris. (Fifth Edition, 1810) I was asked to preserve everything, and I thought it wasn't a problem at first, until I examined the spine. Sigh,, the spine leather was tightly glued to the spine of the book. Normally, if the spine leather's glued tightly like that, I'd recommend for a brand new facsimile leather spine. But, this book has a set of very unique gold ornaments that I couldn't replicate, and the condition of the leather was such that still had "body", which could possibly sustain the force of lifting. So, I was determined to lift it off. ( but, I told her that I might not be able to do it, before hand, just in case.) Well, although it took about 2.5~3 hours, I successfully took it off the spine!! Yey! I won!!!! (won what?)

(cough. cough. cough. cough.)

The restoration involved was a re-hinging of the spine with the original spine put back on, reconstructions / repairs of the corners and internal cloth hinges to preserve the original marble paper. 

Britannia Depicta, 1736

I love maps and atlases in general. I like looking at them, pondering and dreaming about the world I haven't visited. But old maps and atlases are the most fascinating to me. You can see the parts of the world that didn't exist or weren't discovered yet when the map was manufactured, or no longer exist today. I wish I had a really old antique globe at home!

We often get antiquarian map books here, but I'd say this one is one of my favorites and the most intriguing of all. It's  Britannia Depicta or Ogilby Improv'd, printed & sold by Thos. Bowles. (The Fourth Edition, 1736) This is one of the first pocket maps of Britain, and shows roads and landmarks in compartmentalized beautiful woodcut vertical maps, along with a description of each city. I just finished restoring this volume, and finally got a chance to take a good look inside. What a gem of a book!

The client did not want me to perform anything beyond the front cover rehinging, reconstruction of the top & bottom of the spine, and a simple glue reinforcement on the worn out corners. So, as for the restoration, it wasn't so labor intensive. One unconventional restoration method used for this book is the rehinging. This is a medieval binding wherein the spine is directly glued onto the spine of the book. So the spine couldn't be lifted or the leather would fall apart if attempted. In a case like this, one of the ways to preserve the original spine while reattaching the cover to it, is to rehinge, partially superficially. The new leather is glued underneath the original leather of the cover, but the extending new leather is glued over, not underneath, the spine slightly without covering any of the gold tooling. It has to be perfectly blended to the texture of the surrounding original leather. This type of rehinging has to be done with the most care because it's not as strong as a conventional rehinging. 

I hope the client likes my work. He's a regular client of ours, so I don't want to disappoint him!

Skin Graft of a Burnt Book

I have been working on simple, mindless, straightforward jobs since last week to recover from the trauma caused by La Merope ordeal. I just needed some time to heal my mind a bit. One of the jobs that gives me calmness and sereneness is what I call a "skin graft operation". It's basically a cosmetic repair on books that have gotten severe disfigurement issues caused by relatively common occurrences such as "Sh*t, my dog just ate my book!" or "They burnt my Harry Potter, god dammit!" or "Stop throwing books at me! I didn't sleep with your BFF!". Well, whatever injured those unfortunate books, I like doing this procedure because all I have to do is to just sit there and focus on the part I'm "operating" on! No need to move around, look around, carry heavy things around and it's very meditating to me. But most importantly, I like getting a "Wow!" from clients who didn't think the complete transformation was possible. Anyway, this is a 1862 Bible in German. There's a large hole on the back cover that appears to be caused by fire. I can see that the edges of the hole were shrunken and melt, and there are some surface damages on the surrounding area as well. Maybe someone knocked over a candle or left a cigar on it? Anyway, I transplanted a new skin from a new hinde which was cut exactly the shape to fit into the damaged hole, and colored and put the exact texture to match the surrounding. The seam is still visible if you look close, so I was disappointed a bit. But considering how bad the original condition was, I think this is the best any book doctors can do!

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.
----------------------
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.

Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 1672

As I've been sooooooo inundated with work lately, I haven't been updating my blog for a couple of weeks! The thing is, Master has been caught up with publishing jobs for a client, and all the restoration works have been on my shoulders.. Anyway, for the last couple of days, I had been working on the most famous book of Sir. Thomas Browne's, Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquries into very many received Tenents and commonly presumed Truths, together with the Religio Medici, published in 1672. (The sixth and the last edition) Well, first of all, this book has been "restored" previously, and the person obviously didn't know what he was doing... He used bookcloth/cloth to attempt re-hinging, (and patched a piece of unmatched leather over it superficially to cover it up.) and inevitably failed. (The picture on the right.) I think I've mentioned how frustrating it is to fix someone else's jobs sometime ago, and this wasn't an exception. One crucial issue I had regarding the restoration of this book was that it was impossible to remove the previous "re-hinge" material (which was glued underneath the leather on the boards), without damaging the original leather. Thus, I had to leave it alone, and had to do a rehinge with the initial material still attached to the leather.. You see, it's like a medical doctor couldn't take out a bullet from your brain because it would result in damaging you even more, and you'll have to live with the darn thing in the head for the rest of your life! So, people, if you wanna fix your book by yourself, you gotta consult with a bookbinder, yeah? Anyway, in terms of restoration of this book, it needed a re-hinge with leather that I custom dyed to match the original, the edges and corners of the boards reconstructed, and because it was missing headbands, I did a quick set of one core headbands sewn. The client asked me to design the spine to be suited for the era of the binding, so I did a red, antiqued leather skiver and raised bands with blind band ornaments, just like the original. Oh, by the way, this book had a book plate with an engraving by William Hogarth, so I took a picture of it. (By the way, the engraving and the quote on the bookplate "I have several of the best books, though some of them are a little torn." are from Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, Chapter 8. )