Judging from the email we receive, some collectors continue to have trouble with the terms pastedown, turn-in and doublure, all of which reference the inside lining of a book's top and bottom covers. Perhaps a few illustrations can make the distinctions a bit less problematical....
Pastedowns are the half of a double-leaf endpaper firmly affixed to the inside of one of the boards of the case or cover, over the edges of the turn-in. In the image below, the binder has made a mistake with the turn-in -- although the dark blue pastedown is OK, the decorative turn-in was mis-measured and a bit of the underlying board thus remains exposed:
Compare this to the turn-in and pastedown below (the pastedown is largely covered by a bookplate):
Both images depict the plain rainment in which the inside linings of hardbound books have for centuries been bound. But not always....
As Etherington & Roberts point out, the pastedown can be ornamental ... very ornamental:
[the doublure is an] ornamental inside lining of a book cover, which takes the place of the regular pastedown and fly leaf. It is usually of leather or (watered) silk, generally with a leather hinge and is often very elaborately decorated. The typical doublure consists of a silk fly leaf and a leather board covering, but sometimes both board covering and fly leaf are of silk; rarely, both are of leather. In a strict sense, however, the term refers only to leather linings.
The doublure was known in Turkey at least as early as the 14th century, but the earliest known European doublures are a binding of about 1550 in the British Museum. Their use was revived in the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715), but they were not used very extensively until about 1750, after which they became very popular. Doublures have been used continuously since that time—more so in France, where they have always been more popular than elsewhere....
The elaborately decorated leather doublure below is found on a 1667 copy of Le Nouveau Testament de Mons:
The white watered silk doublure below is from The Seventh Book Of Remembrance, which lists Canadian Service men and women whose death is attributable to military service since 1947, with the exception of those commemorated in the Korean War Book of Remembrance:
The binder, Richard Smart, goes into some detail on how the above binding (doublures included) was created, which you can read by clicking here....
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