Unfinished Business

Abstract

There is compelling evidence of the use by the booktrade from the late fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries of partly-completed sewn bindings with permanent structures, with or without boards, but without permanent covers. They allowed books to be held together as they went through the booktrade, added little extra weight and would have been relatively inexpensive. Evidence for their use can be found in archival sources, trade regulations and depictions in art, but mostly in the 82 sewn bookblocks without boards that have so far been recorded. They can be identified by a careful examination of their various and varied physical features, which present a complex variety of options. The survival of composite volumes raises the question of who commissioned the bindings. What is not in doubt, however, is that they were an established feature of the booktrade, though the extent to which they were used is as yet unknown.