Beautiful looking books

[Ixtab]

Books are uglier nowadays compared with late 19th/early 20th century books, especially Kelmscott Press and its many imitators.


http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/privatepress/Spcollf295_front.jpg
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/privatepress/Spcollf295_tp.jpg
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/privatepress/Spcollf295_58.jpg
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/privatepress/Spcollf295_286.jpg
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/privatepress/Spcollq435_xxiv.jpg
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/privatepress/Spcoll1126_48w.jpg
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/privatepress/hepburn246_tp.jpg
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/privatepress/Spcoll1127_v.jpg

[Ahknaton]

More beautiful books/manuscripts, from an even earlier era:

The Illuminated Middle Ages. (http://www.moyenageenlumiere.com/themes/index.cfm?sw=EN)

[Dan Dare]

It's not a complete desert today.

The Folio Society (http://www.foliosociety.com/folio/folio_society_unique_books.htm) still produces some fine works, but they'll cost ya a few bob though.

David Irving's recent offerings under his own Focal Point imprint are also very nicely produced and have the added attraction of rapidly becoming collector's items.

[Ixtab]

The Folio Society (http://www.foliosociety.com/folio/folio_society_unique_books.htm) still produces some fine works, but they'll cost ya a few bob though.Thanks for the link.

[Intrepid]

...David Irving's recent offerings under his own Focal Point imprint are also very nicely produced and have the added attraction of rapidly becoming collector's items.

I agree, they're nicely constructed books. Might you have you any idea as the size of the runs the editions are manufactured in? 1,000? 5,000?

[Dan Dare]

I agree, they're nicely constructed books. Might you have you any idea as the size of the runs the editions are manufactured in? 1,000? 5,000?

I seem to recall Irving saying that the print run for the most recent volume of Hitler's War was 10,000.

[Ixtab]

Sharkskin-bound books. Interesting . . .

[Sinclair]

I see ads for Folio Society stuff in some of the magazines I read. Only problem is, they look so nice, if I had some, I'd be too scared of messing them up to read them. And then they'd just end up on a bookshelf.

I have actually heard that some people buy old leather-bound books just to accessorise rooms, which is a bit sad.

I think my father's copy of "Goodbye to All That" is the Folio Society edition. Wonder where it went.

[Roland]

That is beautiful.

I frequent as many used bookstores as I can, looking for older, more finely crafted documents. I once purchased a treatise on religious morality that I had to cut between pages with a letter cutter in order to access the text (I assume this was a traditional book-making style from that era.) The book had similar artistry, though only on coverpages.

[Hakluyt]

I have a couple Folio Society editions, Pax Britannica by Jan Morris and something about the Pre-Raphaelites. Fine books.

[Donny the Punk]

Books exist for their content, not to showcase illustrations and calligraphy. If yellowed pages and torn paperback covers will save me $15 on a classic, I'd rather have it and five others than a collector's edition whose purpose is to be better admired than understood.

[Hakluyt]

I agree with pot, my shelf is stacked with crappy Penguins and questionably bound hardcovers which need to be held a certain way lest they fallapart. Even lower tier books used to be of a higher quality and more aesthetically pleasing, though, like the early Everyman's library series

[Ixtab]

Books exist for their content, not to showcase illustrations and calligraphy.True, but I would much prefer the book which has both. Not only for aesthetic reasons, but because books are far easier to read if they are well made. Books whose pages are glued together rather than sewn together are hard for me to read, because I have to hold open the book the entire time in reading it, and cannot let it sit on my desk openly. Plus, the glue decays after a while. Some fonts also easier on my eyes when reading for long periods of time.

If yellowed pages and torn paperback covers will save me $15 on a classic, I'd rather have it and five others than a collector's edition whose purpose is to be better admired than understood.I do read all of my most expensive books, not just let them collect dust, and just as readily as my ugly yellow-page paperback classics. And then, in addition to the content, I can admire the crafstmanship, the illustrations, the calligraphy and so forth, thereby heightening my experience.

[Leif]

I find that worn and weathered books are a distraction during reading. I am always annoyed when I find scratches or tears on my books. Highlighting textbook passages never appealed to me either, it tended to distract rather than aid myself in finding information.

Funny* story: A history textbook I found once had nearly every line in a single chapter highlighted.



*Funny-queer not funny "haha." :o

[il ragno]

Books exist for their content, not to showcase illustrations and calligraphy. If yellowed pages and torn paperback covers will save me $15 on a classic, I'd rather have it and five others than a collector's edition whose purpose is to be better admired than understood.

Agreed, but you may not have a choice. More and more the trends point to small imprints publishing small runs at nosebleed prices....or the book otherwise remains oop. Granted, you get nice endpapers and gold-leaf lettering on the spine out of the deal, but you're trading the possibility of wide dissemination for them.

[Donny the Punk]

http://www.bookcloseouts.com/default.asp?N=0

My fix. :) Don't bother looking for any of the classics, I've bought them all. :p