Bookbinding
From the time of the introduction of printing in the 1450s to the early nineteenth century, printers usually produced their books in unbound sheets. These were sold to the stationer or bookseller who had the sheets folded, sewn and bound in order to sell them. The type of binding chosen for a book was normally the choice of the purchaser or bookseller, some of whom provided lavish bindings for very special books.
The Chester Beatty collection of fine bindings include some of the very earliest, dating from the third century AD and include most styles of European bindings from the medieval to the early part of the twentieth century.
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