Wednesday, July 30, 2014

NEW LEATHER BINDING FOR THE WORKS OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

A few months ago, we received in our lab three books from a set of five, dating back to 1803, in need of care. They are to be added to our special collections through a gift we received.

The book covers were in very poor condition with very damaged boards, brittle leather and marble papers, and missing endpapers. The original leather on the spine was flaking with very little left of the original title. Almost all of the gold tooling that had been applied was gone. 



It was evident that no restoration could be performed to the original boards to save them, so it was decided that a new binding in leather (calf) and marble papers, similar to the original one, would be best to provide these volumes with a longer life.

The textblocks were in good condition but in need of cleaning. They were all dry cleaned, mechanically, to remove the surface grime. The few tears they had were mended using Japanese Paper Tengujo 5gs and rice starch paste. New endpapers were added using handmade McGregor papers.
  


Now the books are ready to be part of the Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, at UNCG,