ABSTRACT
The few copies of certain single books, and of full sets of certain authors, which publishers now and again advertise as ready in half-calf, in tree-calf, or in crushed levant-morocco are not really commercial bindings; they are more or less artistic bindings done chiefly by hand, but done wholesale. Sometimes, the sets which publishers offer in leather are honestly forwarded and thoroughly finished: but for the most part they are hasty and soulless. Properly understood, and intelligently practised, it is capable of educating the taste even of the thoughtless, and of giving keen enjoyment to those who love books for their own sake. There needs no argument to prove that it is not an art to despise which has called forth the energy of M. Giacomelli and Jules Jacquemart, of Mr. William Morris and Mr. Walter Crane, of Mr. E. A. Abbey, Mr. Elihu Vedder, and Mr. Howard Pyle, of Mr. Stanford White and Mrs. Whitman.
