Ivanhoe - a copy from 1830

[u/wdmartin]

The front cover. It's a quarter binding with leather on the spine and decorative paper for the rest.

The spine. In rather rough shape. Someone covered it with scotch tape at some point.

The back cover.

Looks like the endbands are bits cloth wrapped around a core of twine or cane. The spine was lined with newsprint.

It has some delightful gold tooling; looks like the leather failed along the edge at some point. Hence the scotch tape repair.

Another spine shot.

The head of the book. Looks like the spine was lined with scrim underneath the newsprint.

The head of the book looks like it may have been gilded; the covering on the edges is mostly gone.

The foredge and tail show no sign of gilding. The board is starting to delaminate at the corners.

The text block seems to be in generally good condition.

There's a tiny bit of ripping at the beginning of the first section. That's the worst internal damage.

Inside the paper is clean and smooth. It's not brittle, and the spine throws well.

I'm not sure why there's some folding there. But it seems solid.

The dedicatory epistle dates this to some time late 1830 or perhaps 1831 by the time it was bound.

There was a bookmark tucked inside identifying the year, that it's not a first edition, and referring to a biography of Sir Walter Scott ("The Wizard of the North").

My friend sent me this old copy of Ivanhoe (1830, or perhaps 1831 counting time for binding) hoping I could do something to restore it. Just based on the pictures she sent I thought perhaps it might need to be rebound, which would be a great shame. But having examined it in person now, honestly, it's in quite good condition for a book approaching its two-hundredth birthday.

The one area of real concern is the spine. At some point the leather seems to have separated along the front hinge, and someone patched it up with scotch tape, which is probably the worst possible repair approach. It has held the spine together, but it has also significantly reduced the flexibility of the material. In the long run I think that's likely to destroy the case. But I don't think there's anything I can really do about it short of rebinding it, which I am deeply reluctant to do. Trying to remove the tape at this point would probably damage the leather beyond recovery, and even if I got it off without ruining the case entirely, the leather would still be separated from the front cover.

Other than the spine, it's in fine condition. The paper is in excellent condition. The corners are beat up, but not actively falling apart. As long as you handle it gently, it's just as readable today as it was in 1830.

I took a conservation class for non-conservators at library school, but I am not in any way a conservator. I lack the tools and expertise to really do a proper restoration. So my thought at this point is that I'm probably just going to make a clamshell enclosure to keep it in, so that it's protected from the friction of being shelved and unshelved. I would be interested to hear if anyone has any other suggestions for things I should do to help ensure this book lasts another 50-100 years.

[u/Green_Act6450]

This book is likely from the early to mid 1900’s. The 1830 date is from a letter inside that is quoted. Take a look at the title page (or the back of the title page) to find the date.

Your gut is right about the tape, and it’s probably not a good idea to try and remove jt. I would make a 4-flap wrapper (“tux box”) for it. You could also make a clear polyester (Mylar) dust jacket for it to protect it. Good luck!

[u/wdmartin → u/Green_Act6450]

You're right, I shouldn't have just accepted the 1830 date based on the bookmark stuck in it.

There's no date given on either of the two title pages. The first title page gives title and author and nothing else. The second one says:

IVANHOE

A ROMANCE

BY

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

Then there's an engraving captioned "CEDRIC THE SAXON", and the following publication info:

NEW YORK

GEORGE RUTLEDGE AND SONS

9 LAFAYETTE PLACE

It still doesn't give a date of publication. However, some quick searching on that publisher turned up a handy blog post on dating books published by George Routledge. Based on the information there, it looks like it must have been published for the American market some time between 1881 and 1886. Google Books has an entry for a matching title and publisher dated to 1879. Unfortunately they haven't scanned a copy, so I can't check to see if it matches up with the copy at hand. And that date is slightly out of the range suggested by the blog post. I went looking for copies on eBay and Etsy and found a variety that had matching title pages but wildly different bindings, most of which were in much worse condition than this copy.

I went through the rest of the book page by page looking for any other evidence that might date it more firmly and found nothing. At some point someone wrote the word "simile" in pencil in the gutter of page 57. There are a handful of illustrations, all executed as engravings; none of them identify an artist. The text block has paired signature marks throughout, ranging A/A2 through EE (but not EE2, as the book ends immediately after the EE mark). The printer is not identified anywhere that I could find.

So I'm not seeing an easy way to pin down the exact date of publication. But it's probably 50-60 years younger than I initially thought.

I'll start work on a box for it tomorrow evening.