This volume, Index to the First Fifty Volumes of the Calcutta Review, was published in 1873. It has a cloth cover and the signatures that make up the text were sewn through the folds on three cords. The sewing thread goes in and out of the fold of each signature and wraps around the cords, which is what joins all the signatures together. If the cords or thread weaken over time, as they do, the book reverts to a pile of separate signatures. But it can be resewn.
A sewing pattern called “two-on” was used in this book. In the image below, the stitches in the signature on the left are at the top and bottom, but in the signature on the right the stitches are in the middle. Have you ever noticed this in a book and wondered why it was like that? In the 19th century, two-on sewing was done to save time in the sewing process. Two signatures were added at a time. Sewing started in the lower signature, skipped up to the upper one, then went back down. Kind of hard to explain, but I’ll show you how it’s done on May 25th!
June 7, 2022 update: The book is finished. The text block was taken apart, damaged signature folds were mended with Japanese paper and wheat-starch paste, and the signatures were resewn following the original two-on sewing structure. The spine was lined, new end-papers were attached, a new cloth cover was made, and paper labels with title and call number were printed and attached to the spine. Now this book can go home again to the shelves of Wells Library.
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