Commissions
Hand bindings with bespoke design
Maybe you’d like a unique present for that special someone. If so, we can source a first edition of their favourite novel and rebind it in leather. Maybe you’ve got round to writing your autobiography or that novel you always had in you and you’d like to see it in print. Maybe your granny’s recipe book has finally fallen apart and you’d like to make multiple copies to hand out to friends and family whilst getting the original repaired.
You provide the material and we take care of the whole process, from typesetting and layout, through printing, binding and box-making. We specialise in very limited editions and work closely with some of the country’s finest letterpress and digital printers, all to museum quality archival standards. Materials are carefully chosen in close consultation with the client whether it’s the finest hand dyed calf and goatskins to custom made hand marbled papers.
Your favourite book transformed into a work of art
It’s hard to give figures here as every job is completely unique. As a very rough guideline a ‘bells and whistles’ binding starts at around £4K and a simpler leather binding in the region of £1.5K. But there are so many different permutations above and below those limits. The best thing is to get in touch to discuss your project and we can provide you with an accurate quote. Expect to wait at least a year for a fine binding but smaller jobs can be accommodated on a shorter time scale. Just ask.
Previous Work
No two commissions are alike
The level of research and dedication, combined with Kate’s extensive knowledge of a range of technical binding methods produce uniquely personal, bespoke editions of your texts.
Kelmscott Chaucer
Full pierced dark green goatskin over boards with acrylic ink, pen and crayon design, 23c red gold borders, green goatskin doublures with backpared terracotta goatskin onlays, gold tooling, terracotta goatskin joints, dendritic printed paste endpapers, handsewn silk endbands, watercolour and dendritic printed top edge. Full double fraynot board attachment with secondary sewing. Custom made drop back box with rounded leather spine. 450 x 300 x 100 mm. This is a rebinding of the magnificent Basilisk Press 1974 facsimile. The design is based on a ‘Tree of Life’ stained glass window by Morris & Co at St. Cybi’s Holyhead. Edward Burne Jones wrote of the book “If we live to finish it, it will be like a pocket cathedral.” All that creates and nurtures life is there. This volume was a private commission, made up of unbound sheets straight from the Basilisk Press. It is therefore out of series, and without its companion volume. Currently in the collection of Dr. Pelham Hawker.
Edward Lear - Landscapes in Italy
Unique copy. The owner of this collection of Edward Lear watercolours wanted an album of facsimile reproductions of the originals. The images were printed to museum quality level on archival paper and tipped into the hand sewn album. The title, introduction and list of plates were letterpress printed using Caslon typeface on 200gsm Heritage Bookwhite. The album was bound in fair calfskin digitally printed using one of the images and the title hand tooled in 24c gold. The album was housed in a custom made drop back box. It was finalist in the Limited Edition and Fine Binding category of the British Book Design and Production Awards 2016.
Richard Power - The Hungry Grass
Published by Apollo 2016. Unique copy. A quiet, engaging novel about a priest in 1950s rural Ireland. In Irish mythology the Hungry Grass is where a famine victim has fallen dead and the crops cannot grow. A pivotal moment describes a hare running through a barley field with just such a gap. The book was a commission for the author's wife. It arrived as a pdf which was digitally printed on 125gsm Canson Antique White. It was then bound in full green goatskin with brown goatskin onlay and 24c gold tooling and housed in a leather entry slipcase with hand tooled leather label.
