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Elaborate Binding Printed in Color
Pindar, Susan, ca. 1820-1892. Fireside fairies: or Christmas at Aunt Elsie's. New York: D. Appleton, 1849.
Part of the edition of Fireside fairies was bound in what is, by
American standards, an extraordinary and virtually unique style of
publisher's
cloth binding: white cloth printed in five colors in an elaborate
all-over
design with a rich gold background. This experiment — one of
several done
at the time by Appleton in imitation of European binding styles —
probably
was inspired by the colorful "chocolate box" embossed paper bindings then
popular in France, though neither that style nor this ingenious adaptation
ever took hold in the United States.
Gift of John Grossman
-David Whitesell, Curator of Books
"One day I am visited by a collector of ordination sermons; the next, by
a collector of 4th of July orations; then comes a collector of geography;
another wants religious newspapers; another wants every book printed in
New York before 1700. I accommodate myself to all; for I want every thing
and collect every thing, and I have more zeal than the whole of them: and
in this way I am kept very busy."
~Christopher Columbus Baldwin
3rd Librarian of AAS
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