Exhibition: COVER STORIES - What bindings say about books

A book cover can tell its own story. During the early history of book production, the manner in which a book was bound was unique. Each hand-crafted binding reveals information about the individuals who owned books, their social status, professions and how they valued the texts within. The type of covering also demonstrates the skill of the binder and the fashion of the times in which it was made.

The exhibition also presents covers that illustrate the moment in the mid 1800s when the art of bookbinding changed from being the means of customising a text for an individual into a new graphic art of book design aimed at the mass market.

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