Bristol law library has several
volumes bound in the skin of local criminals, flayed after execution,
and specially tanned for the purpose. It is described as rather darker
than vellum. A Russian poet is said to have bound his sonnets in human
leather--his own skin--taken from a broken thigh--and the book he
presented to the lady of his affections! Such ghoulish incidents as these
afford curious though repulsive glimpses of the endless vagaries of human
nature.

It is said that the invention of half-binding originated among the
economists of Germany; and some wealthy bibliophiles have stigmatized
this style of dressing books as "genteel poverty." But its utility and
economy have been demonstrated too long to admit of any doubt that
half-binding has come to stay; while, as we have seen, it is also capable
of attractive aesthetic features. Mr. William Matthews, perhaps the
foremost of American binders, said that "a book when neatly forwarded,
and cleanly covered, is in a very satisfactory condition without any
finishing or decorating." It was this same binder who exhibited at the
New York World's Fair Exhibition of 1853, a copy of Owen Jones's
Alhambra, bound by him in full Russia, inlaid with blue and red morocco,
with gold tooling all executed by hand, taking six months to complete,
and costing the binder no less than five hundred dollars.

Book lettering, or stamping the proper title on the back of the book, is
a matter of the first importance. As the titles of most books are much
too long to go on the back, a careful selection of the most distinctive
words becomes necessary. Here the taste and judgment of the librarian
come indispensably into play. To select the lettering of a book should
never be left to the binder, because it is not his business, and because,
in most cases, he will make a mistake somewhere in the matter. From want
of care on this point, many libraries are filled with wrongly lettered
books, misleading titles, and blunders as ludicrous as they are
distressing. I have had to have thousands of volumes in the Library of
Congress re-lettered. A copy of Lord Bacon's "Sylva Sylvarum", for
example, was lettered "Verlum's Sylva"--because the sapient binder read
on the title-page "By Baron Verulam", and it was not his business to find
out that this was the title of honor which Bacon bore; so, by a compound
blunder, he converted Verulam into Verlum, and gave the book to an
unknown writer. This is perhaps an e