Broxbourne Library : Styles and Designs of Bookbindings, from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Century

Maggs Bros., London, for the Broxbourne Library, first edition, 1956. Limited edition of 300 copies. Quarter vellum and cloth, leather spine-label, top edge gilt, folio, 35 cm,. ix, [1], 250, [1] pp, ills (some mounted, some colour). 119 entries. A selection of bindings from the famous library of Albert Ehrman. This is one of Howard Nixon's most important catalogues since it focusses on previously unpublished bindings and aims to describe and illustrate as wide as possible a selection of typical styles, so producing a history of taste and design in European bookbinding. Nixon provides a wealth of information which is not limited to the particular bindings described, but often relates them to examples in the British Library collection. Printed by Brooke Crutchley at the Cambridge University Press. An ex-library copy with an ink number to the foot of the spine, a perforated stamp to the upper fore-edge corner throughout the text-block, bookplate removed from front pastedown with some abrasion visible, otherwise clean and bright internally, apart from a few marks to front endpapers, the covers somewhat darkened and marked.