Abstract

A project is under way at the University Library to map Cambridge bookbindings from the 15th to the 18th century, to help us to recognise them, and see how that knowledge can be useful. Historical and literary researchers handle early books all the time but they don’t always know much about their bindings. Research culture around books is increasingly focusing on questions of use and value, and bindings can tell us many things in that context: knowing where and when a book was made tells us a lot about where it was circulating, and understanding how much was spent on it can help with interpreting its contemporary worth.

David Pearson retired in 2017 as Director of Culture, Heritage & Libraries at the City of London Corporation, after a career spent in libraries and collections. He has lectured and published extensively on book history, with particular interests in the ways in which books have been owned and bound. He teaches regularly at the Rare Book Schools in London and Virginia, is a Past President of the Bibliographical Society, and was Lyell Reader in Bibliography at Oxford, 2017-18. He is a senior member of Darwin.