Does a Book Need Pages?
Bindings support the pages or leaves of a book, allowing readers to progress logically or sequentially through the narrative. How do the pages of these objects function to convey meaning?
Thomas J. Rawlins
Lane’s Telescopic View, of the Ceremony of Her Majesty Opening the Great Exhibition of all Nations
London: C. Lane, 1851
ARREARAGE 2019-132
Purchased on the George Williamson Endowment Fund
Perhaps more a telescope into the past than a book, this ingenious view of London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 is made of six hand-colored lithographed panels that fold concertina style to give readers’ a bird’s-eye view of the fountains, statues and crowds milling about the hall. Peer through the mica-glazed lens, and it feels as if you are there in the midst.
London: Dean’s Rag Book Co. Ltd., c. 1920s
Some of the earliest paper produced in Europe is also some of the sturdiest and long-lasting because it was made from cotton and linen rags. This children’s book printed in the early twentieth century on rag comes with neat borders done with pinking shears—a material reminder that storytelling has much in common with sewing and weaving.
