A HISTORY
OF
BOOKeiNOING IN FRANCE
From the Invention of Printing io the Close of Ihe Eighieenth Century,
By MM. MARIUS MICHEL, Binders and Gilders.
Messrs Morgand & Fatout, Publishers in Paris.
A large and magnificent volume in French text { colombier octavo), printed in Paris by Messrs Plon & C", on fine tinted Papier du Marais , with a frontispiece,designedandetchedby Edmond Hédouin. The text interspersed with several hundreds of woodcuts ; and illustrated with two and twenty plates, engraved by the Charreyre process, and separately printed in taille-douce, by A. Salmon.
A Jeiv copies hâve been printed on fine Japanese paper, from the Mikado* s own paper mi//s ; mth an artist's proof bcfore leïta*s of the front ispiece, Pricc : JE, 4.. o . o.
The splendid and important publication now offered to bibliophilists is the first and only work in which its subject,
BERNARD Q.UARITCH BOOKSELLER,
— a subject of the highest interest to ail lovers of books — bas been treated with becoming seriousness and respect.
It may best be described as a chronological and artistic History of Bookbinding , from the invention of printing downwards. To the proper understanding of a work of art , ail manner of descriptions , however minute and however careful , are generally inadéquate. A better and more speaking impression is conveyed in the roughest sketch than by whole pages of analysis and explanation. The authors of this ** History " hâve therefore taken care to supplément their story with a profusion of woodcuts . exampling in their minutest détails the several binding styles of which the text treats ; while . in two and twenty large plates designed with exceptional skill and printed with exceptional care, they hâve set forth as many famous pièces of binding , not a few of them of royal origin and ail illustrions in themselves and their associations.
As regards the superb origii:ials from which thèse copies hâve been made , there are some of them to be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Bibliothèque Mazarine. The Dutuit collection and M. Quentin-Bauchart's choice cabinet hâve also been laid under contribution ; and so, too, hâve the libraries of H. R. H. the Duc d'Aumale, of Baron James de Rothschild, and of Baron Jérôme Pichon. The gathering , therefore , is not only admirably représentative and complète but of singular beauty and not less singular interest.
Thus , of the binder's art under the immédiate influence of the Renaissance , there hâve been selectcd for présentation and comment such notable spécimens as the François Premier copy ( with the Salamander ; of Robert Estienne's Latin Bible ; the séries illustrating the successive styles of Grolier, and the books whose covers are distinguished by the union of the monogram of Henri II
