Description

[004905] Nixon, Howard M. British Bookbindings Presented By Kenneth H. Oldaker to the Chapter Library of Westminster Abbey. London: Maggs Bros, 1982. First Edition. 4to. Hardback. Very Good / No Jacket (as Issued?) ISBN: 0901953040. [9], 10-139pp, [1]. Original cloth, author, title, and date blocked in silver to spine, gilt title within a frame to upper cover

Very minor edge wear, generally bright and clean

Seventy-one bindings are described and photographically illustrated (three in colour)

“Altogether, the collection if not grand has great charm for anyone with an eye for British bookbinding. It is the happiest of circumstances that it should have encouraged Howard Nixon to produce some of his best and most characteristic scholarship” (Nicolas Barker in The Book Collector, Winter 1984)

The “catalogue entries have been prepared with great care … the majority contain much new material or material that is now for the first time presented in a clear and ordered way. Sometimes it is information about the binder, sometimes about related bindings, or it may refer specifically to the binding in question. So it is that the worth of the book far exceeds that of an ordinary catalogue” (Jan Storm van Leeuwen, in Quaerendo, Volume XIII/4, 1983, page 295

Schmidt-Kunsemuller 3527