EMBROIDERED BOOKS


The application of needlework to the embellishment of the bindings of
books has hitherto almost escaped special notice. In most of the works
on the subject of English Bookbinding, considered from the decorative
point of view in distinction from the technical, a few examples of
embroidered covers have indeed received some share of attention. Thus in
both Mr. H. B. Wheatley's and Mr. W. Y. Fletcher's works on the bindings
in the British Museum, in Mr. Salt Brassington's _Historic Bindings in
the Bodleian Library_ and _History of the Art of Bookbinding_, and in my
own _Portfolio_ monograph on 'Royal English Bookbindings,' some of the
finer specimens of embroidered books still existing are illustrated and
described. But up to the present no attempt has been made to deal with
them as a separate subject. In the course, however, of the many lectures
on Decorative Bookbinding which it has been my pleasure and honour to
deliver during the past few years, I have invariably noticed that the
pictures and descriptions of embroidered specimens have been the most
keenly appreciated, and this favourable sign has led me to examine and
consider such examples as have come in my way more carefully than I
might otherwise have done. Very little study sufficed to show that in
England alone there was for a considerable period a regular and large
production of embroidered books, and further, that the different styles
of these embroideries are clearly defined, equally from the
chronological and artistic points of view. A peculiarly English art
which thus lends itself to orderly treatment may fairly be made the
subject of a brief monograph.

With the exception of point-lace, which is sometimes made in small