The Library has recently acquired a book bound in vellum for King James VI, probably in the 1580s. This is one of a small group of books that are known to exist in bindings that were produced for James before the union of the crowns in 1603 and is a significant purchase. Of the nine […]
Tag: Scottish bookbinders
Female Bookbinders
We recently acquired a copy of Thomas a Kempis’s famous devotional work De imitatione Christi (Bdg.s.950), which was printed in Mechelen, Germany, in 1885. The book is of particular interest because of its modelled goatskin binding: The binding is in the style of the Scottish bookbinder Annie MacDonald (d. 1924), who invented the very technique for modelling leather for bookbindings. The design […]