Anonymous binding for ‘The Man’s Boot’

[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Book Design —> Cloth binding —> Bindings of the 1870s and 1880s —> Next]

Cloth binding for ‘The Man’s Boot’

Unsigned

1876

Cloth binding

8¼ x 6¼ inches

An inexpensive gift book of the seventies for the juvenile market, with illustrations by Harrison Weir. [Commentary continues below.]

Scan and text by Simon Cooke [Click on image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.]

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]

This quality of Harrison Weir’s engravings on wood is in marked contrast with the low standards of the binding. The central roundel is an edited version of the artist’s pictorial frontispiece, reducing his fine draughtsmanship to crude outlines in black; worst of all is the figure of the squirrel, which looks like the work of a child who might have been one of the book’s readers.

Bibliography

The Man’s Boot and Other Tales. London: Griffith and Farran, 1876.

Victorian
Web

Book
Design

Cloth
Bindings

Bindings of the 1870s
And 80s

Created 15 December 2021