Victorian publisher's bookbindings: Nineteenth century publishers' bindings. Work in Progress

Edited @Feb 2026

19^th century UK publishers’ books and bindings – work in progress

Edmund M B King (Ed King) has worked since 1994 to create a corpus of 19^th century publishers’ bindings. The aim has been to identify and describe designs blocked or printed onto covers of publishers/ edition bindings for the Victorian period. There was a conservation objective in carrying out this work, as many of the books in the British Library were in a poor state of repair. His 2003 descriptive bibliography, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings, 1830-1880, marked one stage of this process. (The copies identified were normally those held in the British Library.) Another objective of the work was to enable other libraries to properly identify designs on their copies, with descriptive notes of the designs being added to the appropriate catalogue.

The development of the British Library database of Bookbindings made is possible to place online the entries in the 2003 bibliography, to reach a wider audience. From 2012, work began, to transfer into the BL database, the entries in the 2003 bibliography. Some 730 entries were transferred, together with scans of the bindings. The cyber attack on the British Library in 2023 rendered these records unavailable online. Instead, some 1,200 images and brief descriptive records were placed in Pinterest, using the board:

19th Century Publishers Bindings

https://uk.pinterest.com/edmundking/19th-century-publishers-bindings-british-library/

This board includes some 300 bindings not in my 2003 Bibliography, some of which are Arts and Crafts designs.

For Bindings with paper covers, images of the covers are added to the Boards:

Decorated Paper Covers UK 1825 to 1879

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/edmundking/decorated-paper-covers-uk-1825-to-1879/

Decorated Paper Covers 1880 to 1920

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/edmundking/decorated-paper-covers-uk-1880-to-1920/

British Museum de Beaumont Collection

Robin de Beaumont gifted some 400 books and magazines to the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings in 1992 and in 1996. A checklist of the collection can be found in Paul Goldman Victorian Illustrated Books 1850-1870 (British Museum Press, 1994), pp. 126-142. The checklist cites a register number for each item. Between 2013 and 2018, cataloguing took place for this collection of books and magazines. This work resulted in some 400 descriptive entries being made for book covers (and their designs), with the results available via the BM Explore the collection portal, at

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection

Once the BM Prints & Drawings register number is known, (e.g. 1992,0406.230) this can be entered in the BM portal to find the full descriptive entry for each book of magazine and the scans made of the binding and of selected illustrations. For this collection, at least one scan of an illustration per book was made, with more scans made of illustrations for magazines.

A summary of the cataloguing and scanning work on this collection done is available at:

http://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2019/

A number of Pinterest Boards relating to the de Beaumont Collection were created to allow viewing of bindings and of illustrations.

de Beaumont collection book covers

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/edmundking/de-beaumont-collection-book-covers/

de Beaumont collection bookplates

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/edmundking/de-beaumont-collection-bookplates/

de Beaumont collection prize labels

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/edmundking/de-beaumont-collection-prize-labels/

For illustrations in the de Beaumont collection that were scanned – these are combined with scans of illustrations in British Library books, in the Pinterest Board:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/edmundking/victorian-book-and-magazine-illustrators-1/

The binders' tickets in the de Beaumont Collection have been added to the Pinterest Boards for London Binders and for UK provincial binders

London UK binders’ tickets

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/edmundking/london-uk-binders-tickets-mostly-19th-century/

UK provincial book binders Tickets

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/edmundking/uk-provincial-book-binders-mostly-19th-century-inc/

The John Collins collection of "Particular Bindings". This was purchased by the British Library in 2006. Work on combining the text of the sale catalogue (by John Collins himself) and scans of the bindings was begun in 2018. Some 700 records (together with scans) were made up to 2022, entered into the British Library database of bookbindings. Some 280 images of the text and of binders’ tickets the records have been placed within a Pinterest board:

https://uk.pinterest.com/edmundking/collins-collection-of-particular-bindings/

A summary essay about the collection was written and is available: The John Collins collection of "Particular Bindings"…

https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2023/05/john-collins-collection-of-particular.html?m=0

The Collins Collection of ‘Particular Bindings’… An index of Binders, of Places, and of Miscellaneous Materials/ Prize Bindings in the Collins Collection is available at:

https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2023/10/index-of-binders-of-places-and-of.html?m=0

An index of the Shapes of Binders' Tickets and Stamps/ Pallets in the Collins Collection is available at:

https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2023/10/index-of-shapes-of-binding-tickets-and.html?m=0

During the covid lockdown, research took place regarding the activities of UK bookbinders ca. 1700-1950. The result: Two Centuries of UK bookbinding. The evidence from newspapers, is available at:

https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2023/12/two-centuries-of-uk-bookbinding.html?m=0

Other avenues of enquiry were also undertaken in 2020-2024.

Publishing Activities of Owen Jones, Architect

https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2020/03/publishing-activities-of-owen-jones.html

Victorian publishers’ bindings with spines of 10mm

https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2024/01/victorian-books-with-spines-of-10mm.html

Nimmo’ s Two Shilling Reward Books

https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2024/03/nimmo-s-two-shilling-reward-books.html

Victorian Publishers’ titles bound at the end of books

https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2024/06/victorian-publishers-titles-bound-at.html

Selected Index of Victorian publishers’ books/ titles/ series

https://victorianbookbindings.blogspot.com/2024/06/selected-index-of-victorian-publishers.html