Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings, 1830-1880: A Descriptive Bibliography

This study deals with the many and varied impulses that resulted in a great growth in book cover design in Victorian Britain. New technical developments provided the means for artists to attempt wide experimentation, and allied to this was the impetus for a huge new market for creatively designed bindings that came in the 1840s and cumulated with the Great Exhibition in 1851. At the same time, practitioners such as Owen Jones, Walter Crane and John Leighton broke new ground in the artistic style that they adopted. Edmund King describes and indexes over 750 different books in great detail, concentrating on those that have cover designs by artists who signed their work, or who are known to be responsible for it. Many of the covers are illustrated in colour or black and white. The volume should be a useful reference work for all students of Victorian art and culture, as well as researchers of 19th-century publishing practice.