| Beautifully bound and decorated in a translucent
white and turquoise vellum. The Charlecote catalogue indicates the binders
might have been Edwards of Halifax. William Edwards had several sons. One
of them, James, specialised in this type of binding and patented a method
of making vellum transparent so the decoration could be painted on the underside
and so be protected from damage. , In an article by Philippa Marks, a specialist
in book-binding, James was described as an 'EXOTIC [sic] bookseller', was
also a publisher, gentleman spy, and bibliophile; even his coffin was made
from the empty bookshelves of his library. The firm also revived the process of fore-edge painting as we will see in a moment. |
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