Bookbinding in the New World is represented briefly here by three early examples.
Maya, eighteenth century
Maya manuscript, ca. 1700. The binding is a simple wrapper of deerskin. The textblock is sewn with a chain-stitch method, and then secondarily stitched to leather thongs that are laced through the wrapper.
| Title: | [Maya sermons] |
| Date: | [ca. 1700] |
| Location: | Manuscripts Division |
| Call number: | C0744 / Garrett-Gates Mesoamerican Manuscripts, no. 65 |
| Spine height: | 21 cm |
American, eighteenth century
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, just before the development of bookcloth, canvas was used by American binders as an alternative to leather. Many of these canvas bindings covered schoolbooks of the time, and few have survived, making this copy, in such good condition, quite a rarity.
| Author: | Alexander, Caleb, 1755-1828 |
| Title: | A grammatical system of the Grecian language. |
| Published: | Worcester, Mass.: Isaiah Thomas, 1796. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | PA257 .A3 |
| Spine height: | 18 cm |
American, eighteenth century
A Pennsylvania German binding of highly polished calf over beveled wooden boards.
| Title: | Das Kleine Davidische Psalterspiel der Kinder Zions. |
| Edition: | Third edition. |
| Published: | Germantown: Christoph Saur, 1764. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | M2132.G3 K61 |
| Spine height: | 17 cm |