• Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
  • 19th Century Shop
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    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - August - 2018 Issue

Do You Love Endpapers? An Interview with Simon Beattie, from the "We Love Endpapers" Facebook group.

Simon Beattie and endpapers.

God forgive, I recently broke my own first commandment of book collecting: Thou shalt not buy a book but for its contents! Well, I did—worse, I bought a book for... its endpapers! It is not my entire fault, though. For the past few months, I have joined an apparently misleading group of weird worshippers. Their den? A Facebook group. They war cry? We Love Endpapers!

 

The book in question is entitled Exhortations Courtes et Pathétiques pour les personnes affligées ou mourantes... It was written by Abbot Martin, and published in Paris in 1712. This is a typical Catholic book, meant to add remorse to the pains suffered by dying people. If Jesus died on the cross for you, then why should you complain when you are sick and suffering? How ungrateful! Good Christians had to endure their tribulations with patience—it was God’s will, indeed. But it was more than that. In a time when medicine was unable to kill the pain, it was also a way to face life with dignity—for yourself but also for society at large. This is a serious book, in fact. The copy I bought has a top quality binding “à la Duseuil”, and... wonderful endpapers (see picture)! The background is a pale matte green, and it is decorated with embossed golden signs and silhouettes. When you open the cover, the light slowly runs on the golden parts that suddenly seem to come to life. Oh boy... I couldn’t wait to show my “golden calf” to the community of endpapers worshippers I had just joined: the We Love Endpapers group on Facebook.

 

Simon Beattie, who launched the group, told me more about these “embossed”, or “brocade”, endpapers: “Brocade paper first appears in southern Germany at the beginning of the 18th century,” he said, “and was soon being exported throughout Europe. The 'Dutch gilt paper' you see on English bindings is so called because it was imported from the Netherlands, but it was actually being produced in Germany.” I was impressed, and I decided to learn more about this aspect of old books. Interview of an “old paper scientist”.

 

- Simon, can you please introduce yourself?

 

My name is Simon Beattie, and I have been a bookseller for 20 years this summer. I worked in London for Bernard Quaritch and Simon Finch Rare Books before setting up on my own in January 2010. You can read more about my background, and the business at https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine_books_blog/2012/04/bright-young-things-simon-beattie.phtml

 

- When did you launch the We Love Endpapers group on Facebook?

Two years ago now, in May 2016. My only motive was that I know various people in the rare book world who say “those are nice endpapers”, or “look at these” at a book fair or wherever when they come across something particularly striking. The colours are so vivid. Think of those wonderful patterned papers inside the covers of an 18th-century book: exactly because they are inside the book, the colours are still as fresh as when they were made over 200 years ago. I thought a Facebook group would be a good forum for people to share pictures of attractive endpapers as and when they come across them. Initially, I intended it to be just for bookseller and librarian friends of mine. However, I then thought others might also be interested in it. Some people post more than others, of course, but I hope members of the group like what they see, and maybe even learn something, too, in the process. I certainly get a lot of nice comments from people at book fairs, thanking me for setting it up and saying that it's their favourite Facebook group, which is very heartening!

- What is the most accurate definition of "endpapers"?

Endpapers are the double leaves added at the front and back of a book by the binder; the outer leaf of each is pasted to the inner surface of the cover (hence 'pastedown'), the inner leaves (or 'free endpapers') form the first and last leaf of the volume when bound.

- When did the first endpapers appear in bookbinding?

Books from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance sometimes had only a pastedown, a narrow strip (or guard) covering the bands on the spine, and sometimes no endpapers at all.

- Was there a specific period of time when they developed?

 Endpapers had become pretty much standard practice by the 17th century, and this is also when decorative papers (e.g. marbled) first appear. Brocade papers, and block-printed papers, develop during the 18th century, although I think of them as Continental taste as far as endpapers are concerned.

 

- Do you know if some printers or binders printed their own endpapers? There were a lot of regulations regarding printing, binding, etc. Was it the case with endpapers?

- Binders would have made their own paste papers, using up paste left over from binding. Brocade and block-printed papers were made by specific manufacturers, such as those in Augsburg, or Orléans, and can be identified. I'm not sure of regulations regarding printed papers. I expect the French dominotiers had regulations, but probably completely different rules from printers of books.


- Most of them from the 18th century are red, blue and yellow. Any particular reason?

Do you think so? You see all kinds of colours.

- When did the first "luxury" endpapers appear?

All decorated papers are, in their way, echoing luxury materials: marble, brocade, chintz (cf. Kattunpapier, literally 'calico paper', the old German term for block-printed paper). Of course, many books of, say, the 17th and 18th centuries have plain endpapers. But when you see a decorated one, you know that the owner of the book has decided to spend a little more on the binding.

- Is there a difference between endpapers and wrappers?

The simple plain paper wrappers put on the book by the printer/publisher were usually removed when the book was bound. You do sometimes see decorated papers used as wrappers on books, e.g. the block-printed papiers dominotés on some 18th-century French books. Interestingly, such block-printed papers were popular in France as wrappers, but rarely used as endpapers, which was more of a German practice.  

- What can endpapers tell us about a book?

If the endpapers are made from a fancier paper, it tells you whoever had it bound spent more money on it than if s/he had had plain endpapers. And knowing what kind of paper was made where can help identify perhaps where a book was bound, or serve as witness to the export of decorative papers. Some designs in the 18th century, like those block-printed zigzags, I have only ever seen in Russian books, so I presume they were made in Russia, rather than elsewhere and imported.

 

- Do we have "signed" endpapers (just like bindings)?

 Only inadvertently, when you see the edge of, say, a French papier dominoté, or a German Brokatpapier, which gives the name of the manufacturer.

  

 

Thibault Ehrengardt  


Posted On: 2018-08-03 22:26
User Name: hermeticsurveyor

As an erstwhile artist I've always been captivated by the ep's I've encountered lo these 37 years as a bookdealer, but few dealers or collectors I've met cared much about anything but the rarest and most special. When I stumbled on Mr. Beattie's FB site I was thrilled to see the serious interest they deserve, it is one of the very few book sites I regularly visit. My problem with contributing some of mine there is I have no camera that does justice to them, and many ep's can't be scanned without cracking the hinge or causing binding stress, something I'm genetically incapable of doing.


Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
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    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
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    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
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    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
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