Birth of a booklet

Abstract

The aim of the study was to find out what early booklet bindings looked like, when they began to be used, and whether a Polish peculiarity, different from the pan-European one, could be discerned in this regard. To this end, a stock search was conducted in a collection of 18^th-century books, noting the booklet bindings present there. Bookstore advertisements of the era were also analyzed, searching for information about booklet bindings. The data obtained was contrasted with the findings of foreign researchers.

The existence of four types of booklet bindings was found, of which three were used in the Polish lands. Soft paper bindings, although they had been known since the 15^th century, were used sporadically; they came into wider use in the 1860s. In their basic form, they were made of grayish-blue paper. Among them, two types have been identified, different in terms of technology and use: temporary bindings, stapled (bound) to a stile, and stitched bindings, with a liner, regarded as a cheaper version of library bindings. In addition to books in standard binding, an insignificant percentage of bindings made of decorative papers were noted, as well as copies equipped with a printed title sticker, which researchers consider the earliest variant of publisher's binding. The third type – a binding without a cover, but only with a paper trim was used for occasional publications of small volume.

In terms of terminology, it has been established that the name alla rustica was used for different varieties of soft paper binding in that era, and is identical to the booklet used later on.