CHIVERS BINDING.

£650 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The One Thousand and One Days. Persian Tales. First edition, large paper issue, number 19 of 50 copies. These volumes were bound by the celebrated Chivers bindery with its design executed by a combination of both incising and modelling the leather. Cedric Chivers (1853-1929), one of the most successful bookbinders of his time, had an aptitude for reviving bookbinding styles fallen into desuetude. One such practise was so-called "cuir-bouilli" (literally "boiled leather") medieval leatherwork. From around 1897 Alice Shepherd was in charge of the cut and modelled leather department at Chivers's bindery in Bath, which was comprised of women workers. Her "method was to mark the design on the damp leather, and then scrape the under (flesh) side of the leather with an ivory tool, to make a hollow within the area of the design. The hollow was filled with cement, and then, by manipulation and pressure, the design was brought into relief on the upper (hair) side of the leather. Any gilding, colouring, or finishing was done after the book was bound" (Tidcombe, p. 95).The translator, Justin Huntly McCarthy (1860-1936), translated Persian poets such as Hafiz, but The One Thousand and One Days is a translation of Pétis de la Croix's Les mille et un jours. This take on the Arabian Nights was presented as a genuine translation of a Persian text. Published in 1712, it was soon translated into the major European languages.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.