The Thousand and One Nights

1865

Shoults Eb 1865 T

London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge

The binder Archibald Leighton was again in the forefront of binding innovations. By 1832, he had discovered that book-cloth could be blocked in blind or in gold by machine. And again, the blocking was done on the cover before it was attached to the book. Once these mass-produced books with their glimmering centrepieces were accepted by readers (and those in the trade), there was a further outburst of inventiveness in use and development. The decorations used often reflected the book’s content, as seen in these three examples: a hookah-smoking sultan, a Moslem rider, and a mahout with his Indian elephant; decidedly Middle Eastern and ‘Oriental’.