A Manual of the Art of Bookbinding : Containing Full Instructions in the Different Branches of Forwarding, Gilding, and Finishing : Also, the Art of Marbling Book-Edges and Paper : The Whole Designed for the Practical Workman, the Amateur, and the Book-Collector.

Later cloth, leather spine-labels laid down, 8vo, top edge dark green, 19 cm, 318 pp, seven specimen sheets of marbled paper (probably marbled by Charles Williams of Philadelphia), 12 plates, text-figures. Publisher's catalogue (24 pp, undated) at end of Sidney F. Huttner best describes the nature of Nicholson's book in his introduction to a Garland Press reprint of the first edition: "Although cited as the first American manual on bookbinding, A Manual of the Art of Bookbinding was not written in quite the way one might expect; James Bartram Nicholson assembled it, with modest additions, from English sources. Large parts of his "Sketch of the Progress of Bookbinding" are taken word for word from Joseph Cundall, On Ornamental Art, Applied to Ancient and Modern Bookbinding (London, 1848), a work which also supplies Nicholson's fourth and seventh plates. The technical description of bookbinding procedures is transferred, differently arranged but largely without textual change, from "John Andrews Arnett" (i.e., John Hannett), Bibliopegia, or the Art of Bookbinding in all its Branches (London, Edinburgh, Dublin and New York, 1836; first edition, 1835). The section on marbling comes directly from Charles W. Woolnough, The Whole Art of Marbling (London, 1853). Little (one is tempted to say, if any) of Nicholson's text came first from his own pen. [In fact].Nicholson's borrowing is. selective and discriminating. He does not reprint whole works; he omits words or phrases from time to time, edits judiciously, and eliminates mention of specific English practice in favor of a general phrase or an American practice." A little scattered minor foxing, otherwise Good.…