A Hard Case

Update: Now, with pictures!

All right, kids. You like details? Here are some details.

Pick up three hardcover books, preferably from different publishers, and remove the dust jackets. Look at the spines. Do you see the title, author, and publisher’s name or logo stamped on each spine in metallic foil? Probably. Are the colors of the foil different—e.g., one’s silver, one’s gold, one’s copper? Right. Somebody picked those. And actually there are many shades of silver, gold, and copper to choose from—not to mention colored metallics and matte colors. Somebody designed the stamp—a die—to print the spine, too. Some publishers like to have it complement the interior design; others like for it to echo the jacket.

Spines of three of the more interestingly bound books in my possession. The top is from 1816. The middle is undated but probably from 1900 or 1901, based on cues in the content; it’s blind-stamped. The bottom is from 1954 and has raised cords.

Lay the books on a table. Is there a strip of fabric covering the spine, extending maybe an inch or so onto the boards? Some books have it, some don’t. If one of yours has it, is it a different color from that of the boards? Probably. Somebody picked both colors. Is the material wrapped over the boards paper or cloth? If paper, is it textured—e.g., rough fabric, smooth fabric, grooves, leather? Or is it smooth? Somebody chose that texture. Also, is there a logo or title stamped on the front board? Deluxe! If so, it’s often a blind stamp, i.e., one with no foil or ink.

Fronts of the three old books. The outer two have leather three-quarter bindings. The paper on the leftmost (1816) is hand-marbled, and there’s some tooling (dentelle?) along the edge where leather and paper meet. The boards on the rightmost (1954) are covered with cloth, and there’s gold stamping along the border between leather and fabric. The center book (1900 or 1901) has a half-cloth binding, with the graphic printed in two colors directly on the paper.

Left: A 1992 book from Little, Brown with a blind stamp on the front. Right: Clifton Meador‘s 2001 (Whisky) Defense has a nice foil stamp of a glass of whisky on the front. I believe Clif printed this himself, using nonstandard inks, and perhaps he bound it, too.

It’s hard to see in this photo, but there are two colors of foil. The script initials are in a reddish color, and the rest is in gold. Knopf does a lot of nice stuff for its case designs.

I swear, this book came into my hands in this terrible condition. Well, except for the tape, which I think was my doing. The binding is severely cocked, the headbands, if ever there were any, are gone, and most of the spine has flaked away. The pages inside are still in very good shape, though, and the black-and-gold stamping on the front is still beautiful. It’s from around 1886.

Now turn the books on end and look at them from the top. Do you see a little strip of fabric tucked in between the spine and the block of pages? Are any of yours striped, or are they all solid colors? They’re probably all different. You know what? They also probably serve no purpose whatsoever, unless you’re looking at an old book. They used to be sewn in; now they’re just glued.

This book’s endbands, along with most of the rest of its binding, have gone by the board, unfortunately. The edges still retain their gilding, though.

Does the spine viewed end-on look flat or rounded? A rounded spine has to be shaped by hand; it makes the pages fall open more neatly and helps the binding last longer.

Those three old books viewed end-on. All three have hand-rounded backs. The bottom two are cocked.

This 1992 book from Bompiani in Milan is just a paperback glued into a hard case. The back of the text block has been milled off and joined only with glue (click for a much larger image). Also, the paper is acidic. This won’t last much longer than a mass-market paperback.

Now set each book spine-down on the table, holding the cover closed. Are the front edges of the pages all cut so that they’re even, or are they grouped together into soft ridges? Most books’ pages have been trimmed, but some publishers prefer an uncut or deckle edge.

Three books with deckle-edged pages. The top (Random House, 1998) is a paperback—but it wasn’t always. It’s what’s called a “strip and rebind”: instead of remaindering the unsold hardcovers, the publisher stripped off the covers, ground down the spines so they would hold more glue, and rebound the text blocks in paper covers. This was probably more cost-effective than reprinting because the book contains three inserts of photographic plates, one of them in color. The middle book is from Ecco (1995); the bottom one is from Knopf (1990).

Lastly, open the front covers. Is each book’s endsheet—the large piece of thick paper that’s glued to the board and that forms the first page of the book—white or cream, to match the text pages, or colored? If it’s colored, does it have a texture embossed into it, such as fabric or grooves? Or is there a pattern or map printed on it?

Nice marbled paper on the inside of the book from 1954. The pattern is marbled the old-fashioned way, not printed in four-color process.

Who specs all these details? It depends on the publishing house. When I was managing editor at an independent press, the operations director or I chose the case color, headbands, endsheets, and foil, sometimes in consultation with the jacket designer. All our books’ pages were trimmed, and I never saw a case stamp; only a stamped spine. At the book packager I just came from, our production assistant chose the case, foil, and headband colors based on the jacket and his whim, while the spine die was made either by the jacket designer or by us (the typesetters) and was based on the jacket design in either event.

At my current job, I make the spine die based on the interior design, and I spec the case color and texture, headbands, and foil based on the jacket design. I have two looseleaf binders full of case paper samples, each showing dozens of colors and several textures, but my choices are limited depending on where the book is to be printed. Some printers offer more colors than others at the default price, though for an extra charge and some extra time, you can probably get whatever you want; not my decision. Few of our books have colored endsheets, and none that I’ve seen have deckle edges; if there are colored endsheets, I’ll probably get to pick the color, but otherwise it’s not my decision. A lot of our books contain maps, and sometimes those are printed on the endsheets; I don’t decide whether this is to be done, but I do commission the map. One book I’m working on is to have a blind stamp on the front board; I’ll make the die for that.

It’s a constellation of little details, most of which hark back to ye olden days. A dust jacket used to be just that—a wrapper to protect the book in the store; the buyer would throw it out before shelving his or her new acquisition. So the spine die and case stamp would be on display during most of the book’s working life. Now collectors put plastic wrappers over the dust jackets to preserve them from harm. In Jane Austen’s time, the pages of a new book would still be joined together at the edge, where they’d been folded; the first reader would use a paper knife to cut the folds open. The edges would be uneven, a look mimicked now by an artificial deckle edge.

Today these conventions are invoked to impress the buyer/reader; to complement the inside and outside design; to make a book seem fancier, more covetable. You may not consciously note whether a book has colored endsheets, but the detail probably influences your perception of its value. Will you ever see the spine die or case stamp on 90 percent of your books? Probably not, unless you’re like me and take the jacket off so you can carry the book on the subway without shredding it. (Then you might wish there wasn’t a spine stamp, so the rest of the passengers couldn’t tell what swill you were reading.)

Now, you wanna see gorgeousness? Lord Whimsy designed his Affected Provincial’s Companion with both foil and ink on the boards, an all-over stamp, and printed endsheets. You just don’t see this being done much nowadays. This is book design for people who fetishize books, and I am all over it—preordered? Check!

So. Did you find anything special or weird on your three sample books? Discuss.