Rear Cover

Owen Jones, 1809-1874, designer, chromolithographer

Binder: Remnant & Edmonds

1849

Heat-stamped and chromolithographed wood

The Preacher

Beckwith, Victorian Bibliomania catalogue no. 3

Front cover

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Inspired by handmade books. Owen Jones created between 1841 and 1866 a series of printed illuminated books of selections from the Bible. The Preacher, excerpted from Ecclesiastes, was the most spectacular of his works published by Longman's during the 1840s. A heat-stamping machine and the chromolithographic process took the place of the human hand in carving the covers, writing the text, and painting the ornaments (Friedman 53). [continued below]

Source: Rhode Island School of Design Library

Courtesy of the Rhode Island School of Design

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Commentary by Alice H. R. H. Beckwith

Visually the book retains the charm of historical associations. The wooden covers are similar to handcarved Flamboyant Gothic manuscript bindings and the architectural sculpture found in European cathedrals as late as the sixteenth century. The colors of the text give some idea of how brightly painted medieval books were, but they do not imitate a particular ancient book nor do they truly capture the delicacy of a hand-illuminated work.

Until recently The Preacher was the only known book with wooden bindings produced in bulk by Remnant and Edmonds' heat-stamping machine (Maggs, 299). In 1985, Douglas Ball reported on his discovery of another heat-stamped wooden binding, W. Blackwood & Sons' The Mothers Legacie of 1853 (Ball 48n31). The Preacher was also available in crimson leather and in cloth (Ball 45). In addition, the John Hay Library, Brown University owns a version with a papier-mâché or plaster binding apparently cast from the wooden prototype.

The Preacher gave Victorian readers a rich visual and intellectual experience that touched the deepest concerns of their era. Victorians looked to history and religion for explanations of their origins, for guidelines on how to live in the present, and for harbingers of the future and advice clothed in the vestments of historical ornament. It brought the totality of the book as a combination of history, sculpture, painting, and religion to a widespread readership in search of stability in an era of transition. — Alice Beckwith

References

Ball, Douglas. Victorian Publishers Bindings. Williamsburg: The Book Press, 1985.

Beckwith, Alice H. R. H. Victorian Bibliomania: The Illuminated Book in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Exhibition catalogue. Providence. Rhode Island: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1987.

Friedman, Joan. Color Printing in England, 1486-1870. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 1978.

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Last modified 18 December 2013