New book collectors often take for granted many aspects of the printed book. Because the printed book in the West is usually encountered casebound, new book collectors often think that is how all books are bound:
However, case binding was a fairly late development in the production of printed books in the West (first used in Great Britain ca. 1820). A quick perusal of virtually any antiquarian bookseller's catalog will show that many other binding options have been utilized over the centuries. In the East, for example, one often encounters books bound with their pages folded first to the left, then to the right. The image below, by way of the International Paper Knowledge Center, illustrates the concept:
A book bound with its pages folded in this fashion is said to be in a concertina- or accordion-fold binding. This ancient (usually, but not always) stitchless binding is sort of a scroll-codex hybrid. Heather Weston suggests in Bookcraft that [it] was the first binding to take the [codex] form. It can be read like a [codex], but its contents are displayed on one continuous sheet.
This type of binding has become very popular with modern book artists, as can be seen from Jason Chin's Jonah and The Whale (held by the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University)...
...which unfolds to ca. 27 feet:
Book collectors who find "normal" books boring often become quite enchanted with concertina and other alternative binding structures. But since modern books bound in this manner are generally published in very small editions, one should expect to pay a little extra for the privilege of owning examples. (The Perkolator Press edition of Gordon Johnson's Gravity's Light Grip, below, is one of but 65 copies printed):
Some book artists take concertina and other alternative binding structures in quite interesting directions. For example: in The White Alphabet (edition of 150 copies, 1984), well-known book artist Ron King produced a pop-up double-concertina alphabet book (bound between inlaid wood boards):
A number of professional booksellers specialize in such books. For additional examples of concertina and other alternative binding structures, click here....
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