The Fables of Fontaine are a classic of French Literature, originally published between 1668 and 1694. Here is a link to the wiki article.

There have been many subsequent editions, but one of the most famous and most sought after is the edition that was illustrated by Gustave Dore. So imagine our surprise when Harry, the cabinetmaker in the shop next door brings in his friend, a young man with a Gustave Dore edition Fables of Fontaine, but the books had no covers, numerous torn pages and missing frontispiece. Harry's friend wanted a new binding put on so he could give it as a gift to his girlfriend. I gave him a quote for a new period style binding with raised bands and blind tooling. But after he left I did some research on what the original bindings for this edition looked like. I wanted to get as close to the original as the budget would allow.

I found several copies on line and realized the original binding was very ornate Art Nouveau design, with a stamped gold Dore emblem on the front cover surrounded by an rectangular blind stamp pattern, and raised bands on the spine with titling. I knew the budget wouldn't cover even the cost of matching that design.

Then I had an idea and went back on the internet and found an ex-libris copy for sale that had the text block falling apart, with some missing and damaged pages, but the cover was still mostly intact. I contacted the seller and requested a photo of the cover, and with that in hand I went back to our customer with a different plan.

I purchased the second copy, removed the covers and restored the damaged covers to near new condition. There was some minor damage to the cover corners but judicuous use of japanese tissues repaired them nicely. I rebacked the book with new leather, dying the new calfskin to match the original color. The reback was necessary as our customer's copy had swelled slightly without any binding to hold it together and the purchased copy's binding was just a tad too tight over the swelled spine. The reback solved that and gave the added benefit of insuring the outer leather joints would be brand new and not break. New inner hinges, headbands, and endpapers were added. I got lucky the original endpapers had deep yellow color that I was able to match with one of our stock end papers.

So two books, each one in desparate shape, were combined to make one really great looking book. And here it is, an impressive book restored to its original glory with an original binding. In our business, it just doesn't get much better than this.

Repair My Book

The Fables of Fontaine or 1 + 1 = 1